Winter
by J.R. Wulfe
Summary: In the heart of an Absaroka winter the world was buried in white powdered snow; everything was still and quiet. Warning: N/C
1. Broken, yet unbowed, before the storm

_**Absaroka, Wyoming **_

_**The Red Pony Bar & Grill**_

He hated winter. It wasn't as though he really enjoyed spring, summer or fall all that much either but for him it was always the worst. It looked as though everything was blanketed in clean, white, layers. A fucking pretense to hide the shit-stains and dark corners beneath a veneer of cleanliness that allowed blue-collar shoppers to clog up the streets. Off they went, enjoying their cheery pre-Christmas music while orphans went without and addict-mothers wrapped lollipops because it was all they had. But here these blue-collar shoppers were, throwing away good money on people they only saw once a year. What a joke.

_Merry fucking Christmas, suckers. _Shoppers going about their business gave him a give berth. He trotted down the street hands tucked into his black _Hollister_ sweater. He was always looking for something to capture his attention. He grinned, teeth flashing in a shark's predatory smile when something popped up on his radar. A group of teenage girls were smiling at him as they walked past. They bunched together like sheep. They were always instinctually afraid, in the end, not wanting to wander too far from the streetlight but still daring enough to tempt the wolf in the dark with their cherry lipstick smiles. Stupid little things, all of them, to young to know better, no one wiser around to mind them.

A girl with electric blue eyes and matching hair interrupted his eye flirting with the mousy-haired brunette who lingered at the outskirts of the gang. She gave him the finger as she grabbed her friends' hand, tugging her along. Acting leader of the pack she bustled them away with the pretext of a movie.

She kept her eye on him when they passed, elbows brushing in close quarters of the sidewalk.

"Come on, the movie is starting soon," she said, linking arms with the brunette.

_Ah, little lamb didn't see the wolf, did she?_ He licked his lips, stopping in his tracks to smile in her direction. Mousy, plain-faced types appreciated open regard. It was a skill teenage boys hadn't yet mastered. This brunette was no exception, casting her doe-eyes right back at him in a manner he read as promising.

"Hey there, pretty girl," he called out. "I bet you're not the type to talk to strangers on the street but I love that necklace."

Her hand clasped the delicate fiegler artwork dangling from a chain around her neck that rested atop her modest assets as her cheeks turned pink. She resisted Blue Eyes, pausing mid-step. Her eyes traced up and down him with avid interest.

He smiled wider.

"I'm new in town, visiting a friend, pretty girl. My name's Hector."

"Can't it wait, Ash?" a different, black haired girl asked. She too was flicking her eyes at him, clearly unperturbed that she was making eyes at the same man as her friend.

He patiently bid for time, pulling his hands from his pockets - _less threatening_ \- as he slouched against a building making no effort to hide his interest in their street side conversation. Brunette, blond, black, he wasn't choosey tonight. He'd started the night in the look out for someone dark-haired and big-breasted, but he was new. He didn't know all the ins and out of this sleepy little town.

He waited to see what the girls would do.

"No, make us late - again - and I'll tell Justin you made out with _Brian Lavell_ in the janitor's closet. You know, when you two_ 'took a break,' _Marcy."

Marcy slumped, wilting at the reminder of her boyfriend. "You're right Ash."

Ash snorted, nudging her more adventurous, and busty friend along in front of her. No girl left behind, here. Apparently.

"Of course I am."

He didn't know what it was but some women _knew _what he really wanted. Maybe there was something to that _woman's intuition_ they harped on about. All that feelings and shit talk because as soon as Blue Eyes caught him looking, every muscle in her small, pixie frame had become taunt, heavily masquerade eyes narrowing in his direction as though she could see into his head. Pre-cognitive _fight or flight_ reflexes instinctively kicked into gear and she wasn't even fully aware of it. The girls fell into step moaning and bitching amongst one another even as they smiled. A giggling crowd of hormonal, poor impulse control accidents waiting to happen. It would have been easy pickings. If not for that one girl who looked at him and saw something she didn't like he could have separated one from the crowd. Taken her home for the night. He _wanted_, his blood was aching for it.

He sighed, and moved on, even jungle cats struck out sometimes. He could feel it; an itch under his skin that needed to be scratched. Men were just animals, really, underneath it all. Chasing wants, needs, _desires_. Women were not so different. No matter what they told themselves, chasing security, that feeling of being _wanted_, sex. Sometimes their wants aligned and it was called _dating_. Other times it didn't, and for those occasions he had an ace up his sleeve, being an educated, midwestern boy. Police officers could be very helpful, once they had been plied with his All-American charm.

'_But she said yes, earlier tonight, officer.' _

His face scrunched in what they would believe to be genuine confusion as he built a rapport that could be shared with most men who struck out at the bars night after night.

'_Women, who knows what goes on in their heads.'_

'_Are you sure it wasn't a misunderstanding'_ the cops would ask, and that would be it. Within a few days the accusation was summarily withdrawn. Case closed. _'Buyers regret,'_ the boys would say, clap him on the back and let him off the hook.

'_You're a free man, stay out of trouble, kid'_ as they slapped him on the back and showed him out the door. Misunderstandings happened a lot apparently, in all kinds of towns he'd discovered.

Hector strolled along snorting in amusement as the group of teenagers disappeared from view. He could still hear them, giggling uproariously, not one of them having a single fucking clue. They'd brushed shoulders with a monster on the street and gone off to watch their movie. They would finish the night safely tucked in their beds under their parents' roofs. The brunette and black-haired girl would probably spend the night quietly resenting Blue Eyes. They'd be wondering about romantic _what-could-have-been until_ the next shiny new thing caught their eye. But they wouldn't say anything to counter Blue Eyes; either, neither one had the backbone for that from what he could tell. They had too swiftly fallen in line when their designated Alpha female barked. Slipped out of his clutches without even knowing the danger.

His blood burned for the friction of a body against his dick, for soft skin and loud cries. But it was not to be. Not tonight, anyhow. He watched them go, pretty girls all in a row, his gaze lingering on the quiet one. He licked his lips, a dangerous gleam shining darkly in his blue eyes. He thought he could have made her scream. _Too bad, she looked easy. _He sighed, better luck next time.

Hector flicked his _Marlboro_; dispassionately watching as that bright whiteness he loathed began to blacken with ash and arsenic. He looked at white clumps of snow and thought of the thin line of coke his mother used to snort before she OD'd closing that chapter in his life. _Foster homes were shit. At least mom was consistent about her shittiness. _He blew his last puff into the chilled air, watching as the cigarette seeped into the ground, small embers at the butt dying, where it would become toxic waste for the next decade as it slowly decomposed.

A man with a brown Stetson and a heavy tan coat snapped it up from the ground dropping it in a nearby trash can as he proceeded to enter the establishment behind him. The red LED sign declared it the _Red Pony_. Who the fuck named a good bar something like that, that's what he wanted to know.

"Hey, dude, who the hell named this place?" he asked, shooting the question out fast before the hard-faced cowboy disappeared into the crowd of bodies already packed inside.

The man with the brown Stetson appeared to deliberate his question. Studied him for a long, slow moment. The man widened his stance as though he had come across a rattler in the rocks and not a stranger at the curb of a small town bar and grill. It was a subconscious recognition. Some kind of gut instinct law enforcement types sometimes had when they spotted him. He didn't know why, he wasn't doing anything wrong. It just wasn't his night, was it? It could be something to do with this town.

Small towns could be the fucking worst. Sticking around might not be the best idea he'd eve4r had. He'd already struck out once for the night. Small towns were slimmer pickings, fewer women, and fewer people, higher odds an unfamiliar face would be noticed in a crowd. He could be fucking invisible in big cities like New York and Los Angeles but stood out like a sore thumb in bumfuck-nowhere Absaroka.

The man shrugged, a move that was aiming for casual but was far to deliberate for Hector to believe.

This big man didn't like him.

He could tell from the way his eyes hardened, his hand resting on his hip was meant to be relaxed but missed the mark. He could see the gun strapped to the man's waist now. He didn't let it didn't bother him.

Everyone wore a gun in places like this.

"Well, now. That would be the owner of the establishment, Henry Standing Bear."

Hector scrunched up his nose in distaste.

He couldn't help his reaction and he shouldn't have been surprised with the _Cheyenne Reservation_ so close. Of course, the shitty name made sense now. _'Red Pony' _was probably a thickheaded attempt at punning. _'Red_' for the application of the term _'redskins'_ that was levied against Indians back in bygone days that no one gave two fucks about these days. _Kind of clever_, he grudgingly admitted, _reclaiming the terminology_. Or maybe not, maybe the man liked the color red and had a thing for ponies. Who the fuck knew.

"Huh," he said.

He might as well have said '_fuck him and his pony, too_.' Hadn't meant to give so much away, really. But the man in front of him was no _slow on the uptake_ cowpoke. He caught on fast, this big man.

His eyes narrowed a little, giving him a rangy, squinty-eyed look.

Maybe he was one of those Indian lover types, all for embracing different cultures and shit. Hector resisted the urge to shrug, to explain how his two-timing father left his addict mother to chase after a little, dark-skinned slip of a thing who called herself Helen Running Deer. It was a free country.

He could hate whomever the hell he wanted, and he didn't feel like chatting with this big, watchful fellow anymore. He saw to fucking much that was for damn sure. Besides, he didn't owe the cowboy squat. What was he going to do? Arrest him.

Another cigarette halfway to his mouth he paused. The dim streetlights glinted on the shiny tin-star pinned to the man's chest. Well, fuck. It really wasn't his night, was it?

This quiet, watchful man was the local sheriff. The man across from him pointed to the vividly red sign nailed to the left of the bar's door. It read:_ no loitering violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. _

His intent couldn't have been clearer if he'd pulled out his Colt M911A1 from its side holster and said _'I don't want to see you hanging around my town.' _

A thrill of excitement shot down his spine. It was as if he'd stepped into one of those old-timey movies. This big, wide shouldered sheriff definitely fit the bill. Looking like the strong, silent hero type, complete with the aesthetic square jaw. He belonged in the sort of film with paper-cut-out villains who were always dialoguing their plans to the local would-be hero.

Hector looked him up and down, sparing a thought to wonder if the man had some kind of gutsy, hot-tempered sidekick, too. That was the only role missing from this little show down.

He left his cigarette unlit, stuffing it in his pocket.

The man nodded to the black stain, an ugly blemish against the white snow. "Those things will kill you, you know."

He grunted. "Everyone has to leave this world, sooner or later."

"I take it you're not from around here, mister?" the man asked, fishing for a name he wasn't going to get. His eyes drilling into him like he was taking a mental snapshot, to remember for later.

He grinned, lips pulled back in a cracking veneer of civility. "You're right, I'm not from around here. Maybe I'll see you around, sheriff."

Tipping his baseball cap in a mocking salute he stalked on down the road. He didn't bother looking back; he didn't need to see to know the sheriff had his eyes trained on his back.

The burn of the mans' stare remained, hard and insistent, and not attention he currently wanted.

He would find another street corner to darken as he watched the sheep shuffle on by. Maybe he'd even pluck one from the herd. It was the one truly wonderful thing about pre-Christmas madness and the white fucking snow freezing up the roads. People could just vanish into that beautiful, white blanket. No one would notice a disappearance until the holiday hubbub died down and the spring thaw swept through the county. Assuming they had anyone to notice at all.

It worked to his advantage and people like him who were waiting in the wings, the darkened corners no one wanted to see. Everyone was so busy with their reality shows and iPhones. Boxed-in by their own little innocuous lives, who had time to notice the stranger walking down the street, or the man lingering under the streetlamp? Having picked out a new spot he lit up a cigarette blowing a plume of smoke into the air.

His eyes, though, kept returning to the _Red Pony_. The big sheriff was gone, he'd given up staring and continued on his own business at the bar, but his attention kept being pulled back in that direction.

A man hurrying past his corner knocked into him sending his cigarette flying, ruined by the wet snow.

He snarled, grabbing at the idiot's jacket. "Watch it!"

The man peered at him, a smarmy grin spreading across his face. "Trig?"

He let the idiot go, shoving him back a few paces. There was only one man who called him that these days. A nickname picked up in high school for his short fuse. One little pencil stabbing and they never let a guy forget it.

"Well, Mitch, how they hell are you?" he asked. He watched the other man have an idea beginning to take shape in his mind while he thought of the bright red LED sign across the way.

Mitch had a fetish for those dark-eyed half-breeds who lived on the Reservations. Back in high school he'd dated one of them for a few weeks. He'd been a lanky, dark hair kid who sat in the back of their class.

If he played this right he could get what he wanted.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Mitch said but he kept licking his lips and darting looks over towards the Indian-owned bar.

A dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled. From the way Mitch was bouncing his leg and looking over at the bar he knew he'd been headed for the _Red Pony. _

"Yeah, what's got you in such an all-fired rush?" he asked, testing the waters. He let his mouth curl in a small grin as he waited to see if Mitch was up to his old habits.

Mitch shrugged his square jaw set in determination, his hazel eyes all lit up and twitchy with anticipation. "The _Red Pony_ isn't five star or nothing, but the burgers are hot and the beer is cold."

"And…"

"And -" Mitch paused, swallowing, his Adam's apple bobbing. "The barkeep is fucking pretty."

Hector snorted, he had been right about Mitch. Two strikes and a hit. "Heh, Mitch, you old dog!"

He wondered if Mitch was willing to share. If he could persuade Mitch to share on account of them being such good pals and all it would sure change the tune he'd been singing, and settle the matter of the ache low in his belly. He hadn't had a warm body under him in a while and he's starting to get that craving.

Mitch being well, Mitch, it was probably not some innocent, doe-eyed girl, either. Not that it mattered to him; the fun was in the fucking. The act of having a warm body thrashing under the palms of his hand - that was where the thrill was for him. Warm, wet heat, as he made them come, maybe cry, too.

Mitch held up his hand, shaking his head in denial. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face.

Mitch knew him, maybe a little too well.

"Whoa, it's not like that, man."

"Aww, c'mon, why the hell not?"

Mitch visibly drooped, the fool, like a lovesick bitch.

Hector suppressed the urge to sneer.

"He wouldn't look twice my way."

"Oh-oh, I get you!" he said with false sympathy. "I suppose I'm not too surprised - always figured you were bent! There's ways around that particular obstacle, you know. Slip a few blues in a fella's drink...you get to scratch an itch, they have a black-out drunk night...win-win by some standards."

Mitch shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but the man was still standing there talking with him. He was the fish baited by the sparkle of tinsel on the fishing hook. That burgeoning gleam of hope on his pretty-boy face told him what he needed to know. Mitch would be his. _Hook. Line. Sinker. _

"I don't know, Trig," Mitch said, biting his lip.

"Well, you sleep on it, then. We can get you laid in the meantime," Hector said, procuring a fifty from his pocket. He waved it under Mitch's nose knowing that soon the other man's resolve would shatter and when that happened he'd own him.

Hector watched from the corner of his eye as the locals filed out of the establishment. Drunks were getting into cabs that they would have been too sloshed to call for themselves. He made a note of it when one of the bar staff workers exited, his back to the street as he hauled a bin outside.

Mitch's pupils were dilated and his breathing switched, becoming short and faint. Hector smirked. So this was the piece of tail Mitch was drooling over. Trig appraised the back of him, or what he could see anyhow in the dim streetlight.

He whistled under his breath. It came out louder than he'd planned and Mitch punched him in the shoulder, wanting him to shut up.

Hector grinned. _Slim, fit, and a nice ass._ Mitch could have done worse. Mitch's weak attempts to turn him around were pointless, the Indian didn't even look their way. Maybe he hadn't heard the cat-call.

It didn't matter to Hector who had made up his mind the moment he saw him. He'd be noticing them soon enough.

Hector slung his arm around Mitch's shoulder leading him away from the bar, but the shorter man kept flicking his eyes over his shoulder. _He had it bad,_ Trig thought as he quietly chuckled to himself. His own shaggy blonde hair flopped into his face and he grumbled, tying it back with a band.

It was a damn nuisance at the best of times, but the chicks seemed to dig it. Trig remembered that they had made a hell of a duo back in their high-school days, between his own Anglican good looks and choir-boy Mitch their beds had never been cold for want of company.

"So, tell me Mitch, does this town have any hookers or has that big, cowboy sheriff I just met rounded all of them up too?"

Mitch threw his head back and laughed. "You met Sheriff Longmire, then? He's the law around here, him and his two three deputies. Branch is off at a training seminar, leaving just Ferg and that pretty blond...um, Vic? Yeah, Vic."

Trig hummed, taking in the information. "A woman deputy? My, my isn't that sheriff progressive. Wouldn't have thought it to look at 'em, looks like something that stepped out of the Old West."

"So. Hookers. I might know a place," Mitch said, gesturing toward Trig with a 'follow me' wave before sticking his hands in his pockets as he ambled ahead. Trig lagged behind, flicking his cigarette into the snow, casting one last glance at the bar just in time to watch the sheriff get in his beat-up truck and drive off.

"Pew-pew," Trig said, blowing fake gun smoke from his fingertips.

He didn't imagine he'd cross paths with the sheriff again. He didn't want to, either, the big man looked like he had a hell of a right hook and Hector wanted to keep his face the way it was. He carelessly set aside his concerns about the sheriff without further contemplation. He was getting good at this sort of thing, didn't fuck up to often anymore. It would be the cozy company of three out in the mountains: him, Mitch's, and his _pretty _fucking Indian.

**_Absaroka, Wyoming _**

**_Kidnapping: Week Three_**

It was difficult to breathe with his face pressed into the mattress, but he tried anyway. The fight within him had dwindled down to a flickering spark. His body was too tired to keep it up for long and his head told him submission would hurt less. He conceded the point as he lay on the mattress. His emotions locked down. Shipped to some distant land over the horizon, leaving him numb as he stared at the wall. Its impression burned into his retinas even when his eyes closed. His emotions were buried at the bottom of a deep ocean, or at the ice-crusted peaks of a mountain, he imagined. It did not matter much where, so long as they remained absent. He could do nothing but lie still and take it, and was far too tired tonight to bear the shame. He did not want it, but words had long since proven futile, and what he wanted matter even less.

There were hands on his body. Lips pressed into the vulnerable base of his neck, a heavy weight pinned him down, which caused the mattress to dip. Friction built low in his belly as his body hummed in response to the outside stimulus that he had no control over. He had become the passive observer of his own body's functions.

He felt it when the man moved inside him.

He wished he could not feel a thing.

Pleasure flashes sparked through him and his body responded to a foreign object slamming into _that_ spot inside him, again and again until he was panting like an animal in heat, his feet sliding for purchase on the sheets.

He felt everything keenly.

The painful stretch of a rough fuck.

A dick that was not attached to Walter Longmire was rocking into his ass.

Blunt teeth that nipped hard enough to break the top layer of his skin; it hurt. This startled a gasp through his closed lips, no matter how hard he tried to keep quiet. They did not like it when he made to much noise.

_Human teeth, leaving blunt human indents._ He reminded himself, for all the two men behaved like beasts. Coyotes would have been kind enough to push him into death's arms. They left him to linger between worlds; spirit laid bare, and his body stripped naked for their lust. Coyotes knew only how to kill the body; a man was a far more insidious animal that could kill the spirit in inches. It was this that _they_ did; his spirit had been rendered in two. He was now half of himself, half a _man_, as he laid on the mattress his mind millions of miles away.

He took deep breaths and with each one became more hollowed out and cold, even with the sweaty heat of a man pinning him down. He shivered from the ice threading through his veins, struggling to remind himself that doing nothing meant survival. If he did not fight he would not be hit, would not bleed unnecessarily. Fighting would gain him nothing nor would it salve his pride.

_Be still_, he reminded himself, _and it will be over._

Beyond the relative warmth of the RV, coyotes yapped and yowled among themselves under the phosphorescent light of a Hunter's moon. The brightness of it seeped into the room through the small window to his left, dividing the space with looming shadows and empty spaces that were pits of blackness. A lone wolf howled in the distance and the coyotes fell silent; wild things knew when to be still and quiet, too. The man on the mattress did not think it would survive to see the encroachment of summer. The wilds were oftentimes an unforgiving place to solitary predators such as them. Kipling understood a wolf's strength did not come from itself alone; it borrowed from its pack brothers. Come winter, the lone wolf died.

His reality began to fracture, his mind wandering strange paths, as he remained locked out of his own self. He did not want to go back. There he was consumed by hot weight, and the _creak-creak_ of the springs on the mattress drowned out by pleasure-grunts and his own bitten-back cries.

He was outside; where everything was so white it hurt his eyes to look upon. Snow crunched below his bare feet and the coyotes hunted their yellow eyes gleaming like lanterns in the dark.

He imagined the winter gale tearing his skin and gusts of wind snapping through the Tamaracks so strongly it forced the boughs to bend and bend and _bend_ until their branches cracked, splitting them into halves. He was as splintered at those broken trees, branches tore by the wind, outer skin cut down to nothing.

With _them_, he was nothing but a warm body on a cold night. He looked at the yellow branches. Victims of nature's indifference lying fallen in the dirt, leaves pillaged by the winter elements. His heart lurched into his throat because he _understood. _It was an understanding so sharp, so keen it near-to bowled him over.

Nimbly he stepped over the broken limbs and peered up at _the Pleiades_; the seven pups who lit the night skies. Lore said a chief's daughter gave birth to pups after lying with a mysterious stranger who returned only to take his offspring.

'_Where you go, I go'_ she vowed to her youngest but could not uphold her promise, she had no wings to fly. It was a sad tale - family torn apart by indifferent forces beyond human comprehension. _Ah well, it is what it is. _The seven stars were an adequate compass for travelers navigating their way home and that was all he required. Lost in the barren tempest he found himself outside Walts' door.

He had no idea how he had come to be here but he knew in his heart this was where he most desired to be. He reached out to touch the door and found himself inexplicably inside. He was so relieved to see something familiar that he did not pause to consider the impossibility of what lay before him. The prospect of losing his mind was an inferior evil, compared to what he wished to escape.

Walt's cabin had all the familiar comforts of a second home; it always had felt so to Henry. No matter how many bullet holes riddled its tough exterior this structure would always feel warm in the way of an old friends' company. It still smelled like cedar, dust, and a hint of leather.

'_Welcome back'_ it said as if the walls held him up when he wanted to fall to his knees.

'_Be at ease,' _said the crackle-pop of the fireplace.

Wood burned, sacrificed to feed the fire causing the air to heat as an abiding warmth wrapped itself around him when he thought he might shake apart from the shivers. So cold, why was he still so very cold? He did not know and so long as he was _here_ he did not care to investigate further. Walt's cabin was a house alive with memories both beautiful and bittersweet.

The ghost of Martha wandered these quaint halls. Her smile was both inviting and infinitely sad as she turned a corner and vanished.

Henry's eyes flicked to Walt. His friend was deeply asleep on the couch, head tipped back as he snored. A fact he would staunchly deny upon waking. _Still, he refuses to believe he snores even after all these years of reliable sources._ Henry leaned against the couch, content to watch in silence.

"_Walt,"_ he finally said.

The image of his friend pulled away even as the words left his lips. Walt became a distant silhouette, vanishing down an endless corridor Henry could never outpace. He stopped running forward, watching, as the Walt in his dream world began to disintegrate, clay turned back to dirt.

"_Néméhotatséme__,"_ he said, and for the first time in three weeks, his voice did not shake.

It was steady as the Rocky Mountains, enduring. There was power in it- in speaking his heart. It gave him the courage to face the reality fast approaching.

He spoke, in this place between worlds and the facsimile of Walt, knowing he might never get the chance to say them to the man he wanted most to hear. This world was not real. He was not really here with the snow and the coyotes, or in this familiar space with Walt's buzz saw snoring.

The walls that had held him up receded and he was left on his knees, his hands grasping for what was not there to be touched. Left adrift in a world where he was neither awake nor asleep, the rational part of his brain began to awaken. It was slow and sluggish as a lizard that sunned itself upon a flat rock. Rudely jolted back into his body he began to recognize the signs for what they were: loss of time and the disconnection of spirit and body. _Dissociation_. Henry was quietly falling apart at the seams, and the man panting on top of him remained ignorant to it.

The man at his back moved, slow and deep. Sparks of desire flickered in his belly and he clenched his eyes closed.

He did not want it, but his body did not care, responding to the pressure as the man flexed his hips until he bottomed out.

Henry withdrew from the physical happenings, curling inward mentally. Cowards' choice, perhaps, but he was past caring. He forced his mind into a whiteout blankness that nothing could touch. Let it happen, what did he care.

If he stayed in _absentia_ it did not matter much, did it? It was just something that _happened_ to his body while he stared, blank and numb and empty at the walls until he could feel nothing at all. He was an unoccupied vessel as they made his body burn with unwanted pleasures.

He wanted the chill night air, the coyote tricksters circling, and Walt's warm, cozy cabin setting back. He did not care if it was real or a mental construct, a safe-space created by his mind. More than anything he wanted to not be stuck here inside this RV, which was both hot and stifling. There was a frustrated scream clawing at his throat but he did not give it a voice. More than one predator was circling tonight. He wanted his_ friend_. He could admit that truth within the confines of his head, for all that it pricked his pride to admit.

He wanted Walt to be the big damn hero, one more time. He could use some help right now. Without law enforcement, and in Absaroka Walt Longmire was 911 for _everyone_, he could see no clear way out. The smallness of the room, the inevitable bad end to this whole sordid affair, was beginning to get to him. While Henry did not suffer from claustrophobia he could feel corners collapsing inwards.

He did not enjoy confinement, trapped in this single room, allowed to leave only to take care of bodily necessities. They permitted him to wash himself off, shower, and shave, even if it was just to destroy DNA evidence of their semen, and he was _grateful_ to them for it. Each time he considered: if they made him do this maybe there remained a chance they would release him. It was screwed up, even he knew that, but he was damned grateful that they let him do that much, wash off the smell of sex in the morning. There were instances, though, when boredom became such a malady that even their attentions were a diversion from the maddening, slow, crawl of time. Even as a boy, he had hated confinement. There was a part of him, small, but very present that longed for an end to this nightmare. Any end would do.

He was pragmatic enough to know that this would not last indefinitely. Failing that_ he_ would not last so long as that with the demands they made of his body. He was a fit man for his age, but that was the caveat. He was not accustomed to being on his knees all night or taking it on his back with his feet in the air for inordinate amounts of time. Before they were satisfied he was often so worked over from tense muscles and awkward positions that by the end of the night he was more _Charlie Horse _than Standing Bear. His age was creeping upon him and he did not welcome the reminder in the dull ache of his joints, the embarrassing strain in his thighs as they rag-dolled him in whatever manner they wanted.

Maybe he was being overly dramatic. Walt had accused him of _dramatic flourishes_ in the past, and he was not entirely wrong. But he did not like any part of this, it made it that much harder, and deeply embarrassing when he _physically_ could not do what they wanted. He had fought, at first, until it hurt too badly to do so. He fought less, and the pain was different, an inner sundering of his spirit. Stuck between _Heávohe_ and the blackness waiting behind his eyelids, no choice left to him was a good one, and he _hurt_. In ways, he had not yet reconciled, in ways he had not known he could.

_Stop_, he wanted to say as reality sank its teeth into him savaging the remnants of his disassociation. He said nothing because words were useless when the man in question did not care about consent. The feel of snow and the sounds of hunting coyotes drifted further and further away.

He held on to it as tight as he could but it was like grasping cobwebs that broke at the whisper of wind through gossamer strands. It slipped from his grasp, gone to places he could not follow. Instead, he felt the sharp sting of teeth sinking in, but they were not wolf or coyote fangs, they were blunted and all too human. _A most vicious creature, man. _He had not had a hickey, purple bruise sucked into fruition on his skin in years, for some time. He had come a long way since his halcyon days of high school tomfoolery and college parties where the main course was alcohol. Then, he had chased his nascent desire for rougher, male, hands on his body. He did not enjoy it now. Not the hickey. Not the groping hands. Not the suffocating weight. Thrashing did no good, he learned that quickly.

All it did was force them harder inside, made their grip tighter on whatever part of him they leveraged to gain his compliance as he was bent over the mattress edge.

His neck throbbed, a spit slick pulsation that left him vulnerable to the faint draft coming in from the small, cracked window. It burned where teeth had nicked skin as Mitch indulged his vampire fetish, lightly sucking at the wound. It could have been worse, as far as wounds went, and did not concern Henry. It stung a little, nothing more. He turned his face to the side. If he squinted he could see through the spider web of fissures in the small window. The snow made the world outside the RV look white and clean and he dropped his gaze.

He could ever be clean of this. The musky smell of sex clung to the room, to him, and he hated it. It was an idle fancy, a _will o'wisp_ gliding across the brooks, this desperate want to be clean. He doubted sweet-smelling soap or all the sage in the world would be enough to scrub the dirt from his skin.

The man on top of him grunted. He had lost what little rhythm he possessed several minutes ago; he would come soon.

"Still tight." The man used his grip on his hips to pull him back into his thrusts, the pressure inside was building, and he hated it. It was a relentless tidal wave of stimulation that forced Henry over the edge to his own climax.

Henry groaned as he came, his face shoved into the pillow to muffle the sound, his face hot and wet with tears of shame.

The man smiled, his mouth pressed a kiss into his shoulder even as Henry struggled to calm his breathing.

"Told you I could make you come," he muttered. "Still so fuckin'_ tight, _Henry."

Rough hands gripped his hips bruising-tight as weight pressed down on his back. Caught between sweaty skin and the lumpy mattress there was nowhere to go. Now thoroughly spent and oversensitive Henry held still, waiting for the man to finish. His hands clutched at the bedding habitually, feeling the coarse texture of the blue sheets wrinkling in his grasp.

There was no rhythm or finesse to Mitch; it was too fast and too hard. The burning friction wearing at raw nerves, spending up sparks of pain to flair in a kaleidoscope of _not good_. He was too hot, cramped, and smothered by the small space. His inability to move, to shove Mitch off left him fighting the onset of panic as his breath stuttered, the sounds coming out of his mouth choked and small. He was made to _feel _small and helpless, with his hands bound by police restraints at the headboard.

Mitch's hands roved up the length of his thighs and pulled him, impossibly, wider as he thrust in deep. Henry could not stop the burst of sound that was forced out of his throat with the exodus of breath from his lungs. It was a painful shock and he wanted to get away from the hurt but he was flat on his stomach. Emptied of conscious thought beyond _no_ and _stop_ he mindlessly pulled at his wrists.

Distantly he could feel the metal rub against the skin. His wrists were covered in scabbed over abrasions, which cracked open as his body was forced into movement, used as an inanimate rag doll. He did not beg or plead during the act. His words would only be ignored like the barking of a stray dog. Mitch only pretended to care, when it suited his purposes as he lived out the fantasy scenes that lived in his head.

By now Henry knew what he was to them, a whore, that was all.

Barely even a human.

The RV creaked, shuddering against the storm and he waited for it to be over. Henry tried to drown out the noises, awful wet slap of skin, hoarse pants, and a litany of _fucks_ breathed into his ear, but he failed. Hot breath ghosted over Henry's neck in a cruel mockery of intimacy that sickened him when he could still vividly recall _another_ man's touch, someone he did want. Rough stubble scraped against his thighs leaving marks he _wanted_ to wear on his body, hands that could be gentle even in the wild throes of passion. Perhaps it would have been better for him if he did not. He fought to keep a solid, mental barrier between the going on's here and what it meant to him when he lay with a man who meant something altogether different than the stranger who rutted into him now.

"Fuck," the man groaned as he chased his sex-endorphin high to its finish.

Henry felt the hot rush of come spilling inside himself and shuddered. Mitch rarely used condoms, small mercies that the other man did so religiously.

As usual, the man grunted when he came.

Henry trembled where he lay, pressed beneath the sweaty, sticky weight of the man. It was strange that the act of choice altered so much about the mechanics of sex. He was disgusted at the feeling of slick wetness where they were joined and his own unwanted reaction.

"That was good."

Mitch sighed, sounding like a man deeply content with the course of his evening. After a few minutes, his grip on Henry loosened and his breathing petered out. He propped his chin atop Henry's shoulder blade, the bristles of his beard irritated the skin leaving stark red abrasions.

Henry's nostrils flared in distaste, he could smell him, cheap cologne, stale beer, and toothpaste. He could still_ feel _the man inside; too, for all that he wished he could not.

"Why don't you ever talk much, hmm?" Mitch quietly asked, casually running his hands up Henry's side. "I know you can, sure cussed me out good that first time."

Henry wished the man would just leave him be, but that would be asking for too much. Tired, sore, and disgruntled Henry kicked back his impulse to be snappish or violent in his response.

Mitch was close enough that he could theoretically head-butt him at this angle. Henry threw the notion out the window, it would require pressing the man, still inside him, _deeper._ Henry considered the satisfaction at hearing the _cra-ck_ of a broken nose but it was short-lived.

It might be worth the resulting headache. Might even be worth what would probably happen later for all of a single moment. He did not act on his impulse. Wisdom of experience dictated it was _not _worth it.

"What -" Henry paused, his voice came out all wrong, soft. Exhaustion crept in without his permission, bleeding into the edges. He hated that, too. He swallowed and began again. "What more can you possibly want from me?"

"This isn't how I imagined it, you know?" Mitch breathed into the shell of Henry's ear; his words when spoken were close and intimate, feeding into his idea of pillow talk between lovers.

"I wanted to ask you out, you know?" Mitch said, quite suddenly sounding very young and insecure. "I knew you'd never give me the time of day if I asked. Trig, well, he had a plan. But - but you should know this wasn't what I imagined."

Henry listened as he spoke, but could not for the life of him pretend to know what Mitch wanted in return for this confession. He knew from the ensuing silence that Mitch was fishing for a particular response. Was it forgiveness? Validation for his actions and a _'there, there'_ pat on the head? Perhaps.

Henry did not know if this was something he could give, they had taken everything else.

Mitch's hand smoothed along Henry's ribcage as he waited for an answer from his captive, he became almost lazy in the glide of his hands. The other man was gentler with his touches now that he had gotten what he had wanted, most nights followed this pattern. When it was like this Henry could easily imagine it was not Mitch who lay behind him _\- inside him -_ but he never let himself slip down that path of thinking. Mitch was not...Mitch was not. It did not matter that it would make the touching, the fucking, more bearable. He could not do that; close his eyes and play pretend in the dark when another man fucked him so hard he wanted to cry.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut forcing himself to remain in the present even as his mind automatically tried to drift off. It was not a habit he wanted to develop.

"And what is it you imagined? Did you imagine I would become your _Patty Hearst_? Is that what you imagined?" Henry asked, desperate to end the conversation. "I am sorry to inform you but ninety-two percent of hostages do_ not_ develop what mainstream media terms Stockholm syndrome."

Mitch huffed, laughing a little. Henry could feel the displacement of weight as it rumbled from the man's chest and grimaced into the mattress.

"Really? I mean, no, not really. Fuck, how do you know all this shit, anyhow."

Henry threw out both the first and second thoughts that came to mind, he was all too aware of the vulnerability of his current position. He reached for an answer that would satisfy Mitch, but not insult the man.

He was young, and his pride easily bruised. Henry did not wish for more bruises of his own, he had more than enough.

"I read, nothing more," Henry said. "Wisdom says it is better to be a person who knows things than to be the person who does not."

Mitch hummed, his hand coming up to run through Henry's hair, threading through the section at the corner of his ear where Henry knew full well it was beginning to gray. Walt had been kind enough to point it out once.

He had also been wise enough to bring it up _after_ the sex, the old fox.

"Wisdom, huh?" Mitch murmured.

Henry wanted to go to sleep.

He wanted Mitch to shut up and leave, so he could _try_.

Sleeping here was not unlike closing one's eyes among a pack of ravenous lions, incredibly hard, but necessary. He put it off as long as he could, the black behind his eyelids offered no sanctuary from the horrors conjured by his sleeping mind, but it did not last indefinitely.

His head ached terribly.

It was worsening - a persistent throbbing sensation that was building momentum, pressure spots knotting at his temples that would shortly become one hell of a migraine.

Fingers snapped in Henry's face and he blinked hard. His brow furrowed as he registered that he had blanked out. He had not realized it was happening and this added loss of control was cause for alarm.

"Hey. Would it kill you to make a little conversation with me? Fuck, snow coming down like it is, Absaroka's going to be buried to her tits in it. It's just going to be us three out here for a while longer."

Henry bit the corner of his lip as he tugged the restraints. He wished he could press his hands over his ears as Mitch's tone climbed higher in pitch.

"I did not kidnap you. I did not put a gun to your head and-"

Henry cried out as the weight as his back shifted, pulling away, and new hurts clamored for his attention. They could get in fucking line.

He closed his eyes, fighting off nausea. Trying, even through the escalating pain, to remember if there had ever been a time when he did not feel like shit. If there had existed such a time it was lost to him now.

"Fuck, sorry I asked," the man said as he yanked up his wrangles. "Goddamn Indian."

Mitch snatched up his gray sweater from the floor and left the room.

Henry could hear him cracking open another beer, flopping into his chair like a hormonal teenager. Mitch was an asshole but he was gone, Henry considered that a minor win and kept his opinions to himself. He overheard the low rumble of male voices as they spoke in the larger section of the RV, about him specifically.

"Finished already, that was quick, - even for you," Trig teased, followed by the sound of backslapping.

He grimaced as they enjoyed their male bonding, drinking beer and talking while his body ached from overuse.

"Maybe I'll have a go, what do you think?"

Henry froze, his heart damn near skipping a beat in anxiety as he waited for Trig to continue speaking or enter his tiny back room.

"Eh, do what you want, but we're going to have to clean him up if you know what I mean? If you want him all pretty for the camera," Mitch shrugged.

Trig sighed. "Oh, well, _sh-it_," he said, and they both laughed.

Anger flared in his belly, but died a quick death, replaced with mortification as his face burned bright red in the poor lighting. He wanted to scream, he wanted to curse loud enough that the _Creator _might take notice, but did not.

Trig was right around the corner and he dared not make a sound to draw further attention.

He swallowed past a throat gone tight, tears threatened at the corner of his eyes but he willed them back. He was tired, sore, and dehydrated, tears would not help.

It was small consolation that Trig would leave him alone tonight when tomorrow he would have to bear their clinical, impersonal touching as they made sure he was_ fit _forviewing, and more fucking. It was somehow worse. Having to be dependent on them for personal hygiene. Requiring their permission for such necessities bothered him, more than the sex even did most days.

He knew his perspective was skewed, but he was relieved that Mitch's desires, at least, were uncomplicated.

A quick fuck, a few bites, and Mitch either fell into a dead sleep or went off to do whatever he usually did when he was not on top of him. Trig was less simple, he needed complete control when he felt he lost that he became enraged.

Naked, half curled on the narrow bed Henry remembered the last time he had not kept his own mouth shut around Trig. He had ended up chained in the snow like a junkyard dog. His memory was clouded but he was certain he almost died, Mitch had taken a chance disobeyed his companion and brought Henry inside before his bits started falling off from the ice and snow. Of the ways, he had considered leaving this world and journeying into the next death by exposure to the elements had not been on the list. But then, neither had this, had it? His brain dredged up an old memory; a place and time where he did not hurt in every way a man could be made to hurt.

Henry closed his eyes and fell into the past.

There was a fireside hearth and the aroma of a steak cooking in the oven. Henry in a rare mood was stretched out on the couch, his head propped up by Walt's knee as his friend read aloud from a book in his cabin. Walt's large, calloused hands, which were so experienced with the modes of occupational violence but also knew how to play Henry like the keys of his beautiful piano, until he was desperate and begging for Walt's touch, grappling and surrendering in equal measure until they were joined as one. Those hands, versed in many skills, were always careful in the turning of pages. Walt did not want to tear or crease the edging unduly.

Henry, while sprawled across his lap, had taken a small, private pleasure in watching Walt and his big hands maneuver the thin bits of paper. The other man was almost unconscious of his actions, as he went about it, it was this that caught Henry's attention and held him enraptured.

Such care, and it was not even a conscious effort on Walt's part.

Henry had enjoyed the elegant prose; it had lacked the wordiness of other poetry, and the low steady rumble of Walt's voice, which was in of itself a rare pleasure.

_Pain has an element of blank_

_It cannot recollect_

_When it began—or if there were_

_A day when it was not._

He enjoyed the frenzied lovemaking that followed even more.

Desperate with the need to feel skin to skin, to be one, belts and shirts had strewn the living room until there were no barriers left between them. Each kiss was like the first, even as the rightness of it echoed across time. As though they had done this eon ago beside a brook overlooking yellow rolling plains.

Each man divested themselves of their cloth-spun armor, choosing to lay themselves bare in flesh and spirit as they shared their bodies. Walt, kind in his unobtrusive way, had thrown down a tribal blanket before pulling Henry down to the floor with him. It felt as if they could not get close enough, straining against fragile mortal bodies, as they crashed together over the cliff of _want-need-desire_.

Walt's rough hands had been gentle that night. As though Henry were a page from one of Walt's beloved books. It was enough.

Henry lay in silence, adrift in the soft haze of memory, as the room slowly stopped spinning and reality solidified. A solitary tear slipped down the side of his face remembering a touch that did not hurt and a man that he wanted had_ always _wanted.

The electric pain behind his eyes was dying down to something smaller. Less sticking needles in his eyes and more of a dull throbbing ache. He stared at the ugly mustard yellow panel, the same ugly mustard yellow panel he had been staring at for going on three weeks. He was too tired to fight this night, not like he did the first time it happened anyways.

He tried to forget, even now.

Those small desperate sounds that escaped when he had been shoved facedown on the bed, the burning rush of shame.

_I should have fought harder. _He was bitter with the knowledge; certain there must have been something more he could have done. He tried to forget, but it was all still right there, in the back of his mind, still happening.

His mind drifted sometimes now and when he came back to himself a terrifying sickness settled. _What if this was it? _What if the last thing he ever saw really was this ugly mustard yellow paneling? The last thing he felt, or heard, or did would be confined to this room, this man, and this ugly as hell paneling. And for what? He had been shoved into the oldest profession in the world because a few assholes wanted extra cash they got from submitting homemade videos to questionable Internet sites. It had crossed his mind that they were distributing them on the Dark Web for a price but as there was little he could do he did not pursue the thought. The truth was he did not care to know if that was so. He exhaled a ragged breath and counted backward to sixty, struggling to keep his composure, he did not get past forty before he was overwhelmed.

Shame, it sat like soured milk in his stomach, he was sick with it.

He had not been the one batting his eyelashes and shaking his ass for free drinks. All this had been instigated because ofher habit of making bedroom eyes at customers. It was a game the girls liked to play. They would count out their earnings at a table in the corner and see who got the biggest tip at the end of the day. The winner paid for drinks on those nights. It seemed somewhat counter productive, but it was none of his business so he kept his nose out of it.

He had pointed out the un-wiseness of such games in a bar frequented by men with lowered inhibitions, and sometimes even lower inclinations. He had been told unequivocally to _'butt out.'_ He had done so but kept his eye on them, both when he could spare them.

There was only so much he could offer when he was often run off his feet during the busy hours. He wanted to lay the fault with her, relinquishing the blame that bowed his shoulders to the point of breaking. But he could not do it in the end. Whatever she might have done to lead the asshole on, she did not deserve this ugliness in her life. She was young and had the rest of her life ahead of her.

She would face enough obstacles being a Cheyenne woman; she did not need to be another statistic stapled to a wall. No one deserved this. Amy White Feather had a ten-year-old kid-sister and a mother who loved her. She had people who were waiting for her at home when her shift at the bar ended. Who was going to notice when Henry Standing Bear did not return home? No one except the feral tabby-cat he sometimes fed.

If he was lucky.

_Alright, perhaps that is a little unfair. Walt will notice. Eventually._ Henry reminded himself. They had had sex. _Really good sex at that_, Henry mused, Walt had ridden him hard and fast, kissed him as he came and stayed until he drifted off to sleep. Then, the stubborn fool began to avoid him so it might take a while but he would get around to it in his own was just how it went with Walt and Henry had long since accepted that. No one was perfect. _He will realize, eventually, but too late this time. _The hourglass was tipped and the sand was spilling out. The last call was right around the corner, he could feel the mounting tension as it drew nearer. Trig was getting bored with him and once that happened it was out of his hands. Henry chose not to linger on how much his death would affect Walt. It made his chest squeeze painfully. He had enough collective hurts of his own to keep track of. He was too damn tired to add someone else's to the list.

Winter had swept in like a hurricane this year burying the world in silence and enforced distance by piles of snow, the cold made his bones ache these days. Walt would take no notice of his absence. He would catch bad guys, read his beloved classics, and avoid the fact that it had meant more than a quick fuck in the dark. At least, Henry hoped it had. It was all he could do, in the end. Hope. Really, when it came to things such as feelings Walt Longmire could be as skittish as a twice-kicked dog. It could take three times as long before the man would spit out whatever thoughts he had been chewing. When he got there, to that critical point, _then_ he might notice Henry was not where Walt seemed to always expect him to be.

His heart twisted to realize that Walt was going to face this alone, the actions left undone, and far too late. Henry knew Walt, as a friend, and as a lover. This was going to haunt him, but he did not blame him. He should have known Walt would run. It had been too soon to indulge in the hunger that clawed in their bellies whenever it had gone unsatisfied for too long. That was often the way it was between them. Henry did not blame him because he was not much better. So much of what was between them had always been left unsaid. A promise with a kiss, a vow fulfilled with the silence of understanding born from years of history. Softness shared in the dark and left between the blankets and middling hours before the crackle and glow of a flickering fireplace.

Walt was not a man given to an excess of words. Walt was not free with his words either, it was not his way. It would surprise many people to learn that when left alone with his books Walt was a quiet man. He had a proclivity for hoarding them, words, and books, like a dragon, guarded its gold. He mulled over his thoughts before he chose to speak ripping away his outer-bark of stoicism and laying bare his private thoughts. Henry did not know how he was with others but years of familiarity had allowed him a place of significance. Walt _let_ him inside his private space. Henry if he was honest, and he always tried to be with himself, loved that about his friend.

He did_ not_ love the long, drawn-out awkwardness in place now. This wasn't Walt being meticulous; this was Walt thinking himself into a corner, waiting for Henry to drag him out of it.

Walt was not predisposed to _'just because'_ calls. He would need a solid reason to stick his neck out and go looking for him after the way things had been left. A hastily scribbled _'Gone hunting in Wichita'_ on a yellow sticky-note stuck beside the phone was an awful lot to pin his far-flung hopes on. In conclusion, the probability of a door-busting rescue scenario worthy of the silver screen's _John Wayne_ was poor. Walter Longmire would not be coming to his rescue. He was well and truly fucked.

Mitch was tolerable, but the other man who held him captive was deeply unsettling, and for more reasons than the sex. It was how he looked at him, as though he was not even the same species, Henry had seen the look before. It never ended well. His stomach tightened unpleasantly but he had no desire to vomit so he forced his thoughts down another path. As much as Mitch and his affectation of intimacy repulsed him he did not concern Henry half so much as the other man.

Mitch had even made noises about letting him go; _'when he was done'_ he would say. Usually after sex, or right before he slumped off to sleep. Henry was not naive enough to take him at his word. Hope was a dangerous thing after all, but he did not seem quite as invested in making him bleed as his companion was. Henry considered himself fairly thick-skinned.

He had lost any latent sensitivity to prurient name-calling at an early age, running a bar and being_ Cheyenne_ had settled the rest. He picked his battles better than that, mostly. He had been called all manner of things from '_shiny-apple,' 'cherry-nigger,'_ and the tame brand of '_Injun'_ made popular by Hollywood's western pop-culture. Personal experience dictated this was the white man's easy, go-to insult. Henry accredited this to drunkenness and lack of imagination. But _whore;_ now there was a new appellation even for him. It was what the other man called him, never by his name.

'_Hey, whore,'_ he said, or_ 'fucking Indian!' _

Henry was no man's whore. He knew this and yet he found he needed to remind himself that this was not his choice.

Lack of _'no'_ did not amount to consent. He had said _no_, the first time, and the second, and the third. For all the good _that _did him. He did not say it anymore.

'_Whore,' _Trig called him, like it had become his favorite endearment. He said it with such deliberateness there was no mistaking his intent. It cut a little deeper each time like rubbing salt into an open wound.

Rationally he knew it should not bother him any more than the rest of the things he had been called in his lifetime. Despite what Walt thought he did not have an extensive repertoire of bedroom experiences with men. It seemed to him _whore_ was a slur most often employed by drunken men with little, pencil-dicks trying to prove their masculinity. He knew all this. Yet there existed a world between rationale and emotion and like the Tamaracks shaking in the winter gale Henry could feel himself being to buckle under the weight.

He was no man's whore, maybe, but they were halfway to making a liar of him in the word was clinging to him like dirt he could not scrub clean, burrowing its claws under his skin and into his very thoughts, a dark seedling whose roots were fast spreading.

Something was going to break; it was only a matter of time.

Tamaracks were proud trees, their branches heavy with yellow leaves, but they could only bend so far before their rugged limbs would break and they would give way to the storm's will. He was no man's whore, but it was a difficult affirmation to hold to when he felt only half a _man_ in the first place.

Henry could no longer see the beauty of an Absaroka winter, the raw destructive force that was nature unleashed. He felt too keenly the weight of the storm. No longer able to find that place within him that was still and quiet in the face of this violent unmaking.

The storm had grown stronger, and he was tired.


	2. Chapter 2

_Absaroka, Longmire Residence_

_Present Day:_

It was cold as a grave in the woods. Walt didn't know why he was out in the middle of the woods during a winter storm. Maybe he'd caught a case of stupid? Must have to keep tracking an outline in the dark that always stayed too far to properly catch up with. Grunting like an irritated grizzly Walt ploughed onwards. It was coming down heavy, the wet sting of sleet cutting into his exposed face as the bitter cold rapidly stole his warmth and froze his breath into crystals. It was a never-ending nightmare of white so damn bright he felt he would have a permanent squint like Clint Eastwood in any of his old Western flicks.

Walt pushed on, wading through snow that reached up to his waist as he tried to outpace the bulky figure ahead as it lumbered along. He was connected, he and it, and he didn't know how but there was a pale silver thread wrapped around his thumb and the farther away it got the more he felt this tug that seemed to cut right down to his heart. He stopped, once, and felt the line pull taunt. It felt like ghost cords had wrapped around his limbs tugging until he could see blood rising to the surface of his skin, before flesh split open he started walking and he hadn't stopped again. Deep in his gut Walt knew if he took his eyes off the figure it would be gone forever. He didn't want that.

He couldn't figure out why it mattered, he just knew it did. He could feel the steady thump-thump of his heart jackhammering in his chest and his throat was too full of cotton for speech. Lot of good shouting would do, he didn't even know if what he was following was a man. He could swear there was something of the familiar about the dark outline, it was important. Kind of like a sturdy life-line to keep from getting lost in this labyrinth of blinding whiteness.

It stopped abruptly and so did Walt. The dark, shadowy outline began to morph into something recognizable now that they had reached a standstill. Snow was pelting his cheeks leaving his skin chapped raw and Santa-red as Walt blinked, staring into the gray-dark of the coming twilight.

It occurred to him what he was seeing was a very bear-shaped form and his adrenaline spiked, his heart giving a might kick as though to say 'you stupid man, look what you've done now.' He decided his heart sounded oddly like his Aunt Meredith, she'd been mad as a march-hare so he gave it no account. Walt stood there a moment before he held up his thumb and gave the silver thread a hard tug.

Blood welled up and he sucked away the red copper - last thing he needed was a wild animal scenting fresh blood.

He paused to glance down, taking the thread in his hands, examining the solid feel of it sliding against his hand. It was beautiful, really. How had he come to possess something that fucking gorgeous? It was slim, but the whole length of it sparked with pale white lights, held in the palm of his hand it felt warm. It felt damn near unbreakable, too.

Walt let it slip from his hands, deciding he didn't mind it so much after all. It felt important, like _Ariadne's_ famous ball of yarn, except it didn't feel like there was a minotaur waiting on the other side.

It felt like home.

Walt looked up at the bear, it had stopped to stare back at the stupid human whose been chasing it for half a mile and wondered if he'd get the chance to go home. Maybe it thought he was a hunter? Walt doesn't know why, but he hoped not. It was to fucking magnificent to be a stuffed head on someone's fireplace. Maybe it was thinking about eating him, instead. Maybe he'd deserve it, too. It was a damn fool thing to do, chasing a shadow into a snow storm.

The bear did not eat him or show any indications of wanting to as they observe one another in a moment of perfect stillness. It looked back at him with deep, obsidian dark eyes and Walt felt a different emotion rise; an abiding sadness that settled over his bones like an extra coating of ice. Bear's ought to be asleep in their dens spared the winter-hunger other predators faced when prey grew scarce on the ground - that was the natural order of things but something had gone wrong, disturbing the natural order. He raised his hand palm bared in an empty gesture of apology and he didn't know why he'd done it, raised his hand with that translucent silver cord still attached to his thumb. The bear couldn't understand him and trying to bridge the gap was like shouting into a windstorm; his mouth was moving and he knew what he meant to say but no one else could hear worth a damn. Walt figured poachers must have disturbed the bear's hibernation and there was no fixing that. An action once done could not be undone. Like _Pandora_ and her little box of horrors once opened there was no stuffing the demons of woe back inside; out came Misery, Death, and Sadness to whisper in the ears of mankind. A little voice in the back of Walt's mind that sounded suspiciously like Henry spoke. _It is what it is._

Walt hated being wrong and he hated the deterministic ideology that bordered on fatalism Henry occasionally fell into.

People were responsible for their own actions, dammit. Remove that responsibility and he'd either be out of a job or a whole lot busier in a bad way. Henry, if he was here, would be correct but no one said Walt had to like it.

The bear would just have to forage like the rest of the forest wildlife until its fortune changed. Starlight hit the thread just right catching his eye again. He watched the silver thread shift, shining faintly as it disappeared from his sight near the bears paws. Walt frowned, giving his thread another, gentle tug. In response the bear stood up on its back legs and Walt felt his breath quicken, eyes widening. What?

Walt got caught up staring into obsidian dark eyes where he found an uncanny familiarity he couldn't place. Before he could try, the bear faded like a ghost into the blizzard. Where once there was standing a creature strong and powerful, walking against the wind now was nothing but white wisps and gray mist.

"Come back!" Walt called out knowing there was something he should have said - words that were worth shouting into the storm even if they weren't fully heard, or understood. Something. It was a futile effort, snow had swallowed up his words and the bear was gone.

Walt knelt, inspecting tracks that led off into the distance but they were already disappearing and all he could do was watch, staring in complete silence as the frigid cold of winter chilled him down to the bone. Inch by inch the silver thread was fading, dissolving like ash even as he tried to protect it from the elements. He was too late.

At home in his bed Walt Longmire sat up breathing hard as a strange feeling of loss pricked at his chest. That vacant spot a few inches above his ribs which no amount of alcohol could ever fill.

"Jesus Christ, what did I eat?" Walt muttered to himself rubbing the bristles on his chin with the heel of his hand as he untangled the sheets from his legs. It was so quiet he could hear the wordless murmur of strong winds rattling through the trees. Walt paused to listen as somewhere far off a wolf howled. It's sonorous wail faded into silence and no others joined in with it's nighttime singing. It was alone. You and me both, pal, Walt thought as he stared at the ceiling. He could feel the rough stubble tickle across the pads of his fingers and figured he could do with a shave. Later, later will be soon enough. He rubbed his hands together, the friction generating enough warmth to take the edge off the chill that had the joints in his fingers aching. He watched as his breath trailed up in a fog, realizing that the heater must have quit on him some time during the night.

Well, that had been one hell of a dream. His first knee-jerk reaction to it was normal, he wanted to talk about it with Henry. Not that they often sat around talking about dreams and feelings or anything but this one had a differentness to it that left him foot wrong footed, it had felt important. It was strange to realize that he couldn't.

What would I even say, Walter wondered to himself. _'Look, I made a mess of things and I know that now. But can we put that on the backburner for a second - I want to talk to you about something different that's bugging me.'_ Walt chuckled darkly, not because it was particularly funny, but because it might actually work. If he just picked up the phone and tried it. He blew out a breath, dismissing his first instinct. Besides a ringing phone in the small hours of the night wasn't a good way to begin any kind of apology. He shelved that thought to revisit at a more appropriate hour. It went without being said that if Walt didn't fix what was unresolved between him and Henry he might be forced to develop new instincts. He wanted that about as much as a cell phone of his own so everyone and their brother could badger him 24 hours at any time they pleased. It felt unnatural, this desire people had to carry around something that was used to find people, criminals, all the time.

The gears in his head kept spinning, round and round like a Merry-Go-Round complete with the haunting echo of circus tunes - it was making him re-evaluate what it was he wanted. The little voice in the back of his head, calling it his better angels, or his conscience, wanted him to face _why_ he needed to fix this.

If he left well enough alone, they would find a new pattern, new ways of being friends. Sex had come into the equation later. It could leave now, slink out the back door like a troublesome third wheel - no questions asked. It was an option, it just wasn't palatable to Walt. The very notion made his insides pucker as though he'd taken a bite out of a raw lemon with a bloody lip. Sex wasn't_ all_ they were, but it was a part of it and being a hot-blooded man he would miss it if it were to stop. It'd be like going Cold Turkey, stopping a habit he'd been enthusiastically engaging in since his teens. No, sex wasn't the be all, end of of what they were but Walt was quite fond of it all the same.

Walt stared at the ceiling imagining the sky outside, black with endless lines. His life wasn't like that, it wouldn't go on forever. It was short and very finite in comparison to the wide expanse that existed in the upper atmosphere. He had to ask himself, why, why hadn't he decided what to do yet, didn't he already know, or was he just afraid of being alone?

He didn't know. Or, he did, but he didn't know what to do with the knowledge. He and Henry had been sparking at each other since they were young bucks, true. But it was more than that, too. There was a rightness in it when he had Henry in his arms, wrapped so close he didn't know where he ended and Henry began. His heart gave a flutter, the wings of a bird beating against the cage of his rib bones, his breath becoming heavy in the hazy recollection of sweet, slick friction as desire pooled low in his gut.

He thought about touching himself, wanted to a bit, his dick twitching with interest already on board with the idea as he lay in a bed full of memories. Nights spent lost in a daze of sweat, sex, and kissing, loosing himself in the sensations; the feel of warm, tanned skin, rough hands, and dark eyes...Fuck, he remembered.

Walt considered getting dressed, going out, hitting a bar. There must be at least one open even at this hour.

But it'd been so_ long_ and he had never been that smooth with the ladies. Martha had been an exception, a whirlwind of golden sunshine that blew in his door one day and never left. "Until death do we part," Walt murmured, his words swallowed up into the unrelenting blackness of the room.

Right or wrong he'd rather fall down the rabbit hole of what-was than have some meaningless screw in the dark with someone whose name Walt knew he wouldn't bother to learn. They would be a poor substitute for what he wanted but didn't know how to let himself have.

Walt laid back a little, lazily stroking himself as he closed his eyes and pretended.

_It was him and Henry in the little bed above the bar, it would squeak when he wrestled Henry onto it. Henry would land on top, he usually did, bracing himself with a hand pressed flat against the broad expanse of Walt's chest, 'stay down' his look would say._

_He'd consider flipping them over but would resist the urge for the moment. He liked the solid weight pressing him into the mattress as Henry straddled his hips. He'd obey. Enjoying the view as Henry leaned forward, reaching for the slick kept in the nightstand._

_Walt never asked if there had been others. He didn't want to know._

_Walt would snag the container from his hands, grinning, as he popped the cap smearing the stuff on his own fingers._

_As he worked him open, slow and careful, Walt would become enraptured by Henry's closed eyes, the sweep of dark lashes on high cheekbones, and quiet breathy sounds as the other man rocked to press against his finger which, in turn, rubbed their flesh together with the most delectable friction._

_It was in this moment that Walt could pretend that this was their newly discovered normal, that he had found the right words..._

Walt furrowed his brow, grabbing himself a little tighter, moving his hand much slower as he rewound the visuals playing out in his head trying to find the sweet spot of want and need and have. "Henry" he said, breathing the name aloud, breaking the silence of the room with a name spoke like a sacred invocation.

As though summoned by the speaking of his name he could picture Henry now. Shameless and nakedly sprawled atop Walt's chest, his dark eyes soft and fond. Walt didn't need speech to know what they were saying. _'Well, now what, cowboy?'_

_Don't rush,_ Walt thought. He slowed down the stroke of his hand on his dick. Immersing himself in the image he had built up. No, this time, he'd take his time - emblaze the moment into memory, stockpiled for nights when his bed was cold and full of too many ghosts.

He loved the intimacy of sex, the close, warm wetness of being allowed inside another person; the self disappearing into the abyss of joie de vivre…

But this wasn't just anyone he was thinking of.

It was Henry.

Walt wanted to touch, kiss, hold, he wanted everything. Overwhelmed with so many wants that picking one became hard. Thinking wasn't easy, either, as all his blood rushed south leaving him lightheaded and aching.

He was drowning in his head, a boat adrift at sea, and Henry was the ocean he could lose himself in. The ocean that drowned him in sensory bliss, shutting down his brain, as their fantasy bodies moved in tandem.

_Deciding he'd had enough prep, wanting more than fingers Henry would take the container from Walt and get him slick. His hand was deft and thorough, careful not to tip Walt over the edge he was riding. To steady himself he'd count backward. In Latin._

_He didn't want to go off too soon. Tredecim, duodecim, undecim, decem -_

_Walt gasped, his head knocking into the headboard with a solid thump. He didn't feel it, all he felt was the hot, tightness surrounding him. His hands would scrabble, blind, before finding purchase at Henry's trim waist._

_He didn't let himself forget that moment, pressed so close it almost seemed they breathed in the same air. Body and spirit melded into one being…_

_It stayed with him, imprinting on his soul, the feel of Henry tight and slick around Walt's length until his eyes fell shut, head tipping back in pleasure. Walt would chase the exposed line of throat with his tongue, teeth gently nipping at the hollow._

_He'd taste the sweat at Henry's collarbone as he buried himself deep inside. Henry would card his hand through his hair, his mouth parting in a small gasp as Walt grabbed his hips and thrust hard enough to rock them both over the edge._

_To see him like that? Limed in the pale half-light Walt would fall, all over again. He always did._

_How the fuck had he gotten to have someone this fucking gorgeous? Walt must have done something right in another life because it sure wasn't this one. "Oh fuck" he'd groan, the muscles in his neck corded tight, his eyes half-lidded as he looked up at Henry._

_Henry wouldn't say anything, but a lazy grin would curl the corner of his mouth as he moved his hips in ways Walt would be remembering for months._

_Wanting to make sure his friend found his end first, Walt would stroke the other man in time with his thrusts until he too fell over the cliff's edge of white-bliss._

_Walt would soften and slip out of him while Henry lay on top keeping them pressed close, they would pause taking a moment to catch their breath before separating. Here in this dream world neither would speak. What was there to say that was not crass?_

_Thanks._

_That was good._

_I…._

_It was all true, but even here Walt did not speak._

_Even in the dream, Walt missed his heat._

Walt groaned into the silence of the room, coming into his hand. He grabbed a tissue and wiped himself off. His bodily needs were sated but he felt twice as empty. He grumbled, rolling onto his side wondering if he should consider prescription pills for a few nights of turn-out-the-light's no-one's home sleep. Has it come to that? Just sleep, you idiot, Walt thought to himself and closed his eyes. He opened them twenty minutes later. He didn't feel better after chasing his own solitary desire, if anything he felt worse. Like he'd taken something sacred and sullied it for a few moments gratification.

Dream Henry had only been that, a vivid conjuration of his brain. He didn't want imaginary fever dreams, he wanted the flesh and blood man. Wanting Henry was like wanting to breathe air in his lungs and fire in his blood. It just is - more than want, but not quite a need. I could live without. But I don't want to. Same as I didn't want to live without Martha. But I have too, Walt thought to himself. He supposed the difference was that he got a choice in the matter. Henry was still here.

He wanted, he needed, Walt just hadn't decided how to make it known. After Martha died he'd pushed everyone away - some that might have needed a shoulder to lean against to maybe. He'd done the best he could, but his best hadn't been enough. It was another regret tallied to the board he kept track of in his head. Longmire's list of Wrong's done.

Walt glared into the dark, stubbornly letting the desire to reach out to Henry ebb away like grains of sand ground to dust between his fingers. It'd earn me a ribbing anyhow, Walt thought. It didn't take much to imagine the unimpressed look Henry would shoot at him, judging eyebrows raised in question as though to say, _'Really, Walt?'_

_Nope. Let it be for tonight,_ Walt thought, resolved to keep this night-time vision private. He turned over on his other side, trying to settle in for the night but his brain wasn't read to let him escape.

"Chasing a bear into a snow storm?" he muttered to himself, irritated with himself, his latent bouts of insomnia, and the ghostly remnants of a midnight revere. It had all been a little bit too on the nose to stomach.

And what was the meaning of that silver thread? Walt felt compelled to look down at his thumb, barely visible in the thin threads of light piercing the dark of his bedroom. His brows pinched together in irritation at the thin line of broken skin encircling his thumb in a perfect band. Or a small noose.

What the hell? He examined his thumb, holding it up to his face for a moment. He felt ten kinds of a fool scowling at the clean, crisp bed sheets that didn't have a single red stain to show on or under the pillow's where his hands had been resting. Not knowing what to make of it Walt shrugged it off and went back to ruminating his strange dream.

He wanted to dismiss it as the uncanny mechanisms of his sleeping mind spinning their wheels as he slept; but he suspected it had more to do with a few things he'd left unspoken. Words he'd buried deep down in his subconscious that needed saying. Stuff he kept shoving off. Let it be tomorrow's problem, he thought. Let sleeping bears lie, they said and for good reason. Henry had sufficient grounds to be cross with him, too. He'd been a bit of a bastard.

It didn't matter, not really, because it was far too late for that kind of conversation - and something like what needed to be said was done face to face. Using the phone would be the cowards way out. Walt may have been a bastard in his handling of the situation but he wasn't yellow. Henry was probably sleeping on the too small bed above the Red Pony. Walt paused his nostrils flaring as he considered the odds that he wasn't sleeping alone. Within the space of a heart-beat a seedling of jealousy grew and bloomed into a vibrant sprig of green.

His imagination running wild, Walt hated them already. This nameless, faceless person that got to lie beside Henry soaking up the furnace-like heat of his body. Did they know his worth? How to touch him in ways that made his calm façade crack right open - all his emotions laid bare when they had him in their arms?

Did they know how to kiss him, deep and filthy...God, his mouth had been so warm, the caress of his lips softer than a mans' lips had any right being. He'd tasted like the first winter-rain, clean, cold, and everything Walt had ever wanted. Did they know that? Walt doubted it.

It was his own choice, this persisting absence of what he wanted, which was the hell of it. Walt could be that person. He knew from his toes to the crown of his head that if he went to Henry right now, that person would be him. But he was here instead. Alone in a bed too big for one freezing his ass off thinking about a strange dream.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that he knew where to find Henry when he was ready to dig up those words he'd been burying, then the 'I'm sorry' that was overdue. And he was, sorry. It was cold comfort when he knew that even if Henry was sleeping alone tonight he might not be tomorrow. Henry had a way about him, drawing people into his inner circle and setting them at ease with his calm nature. People either loved him or they hated him with very little in the way of middle ground.

And those that fell in the first camp tended to fall into his bed sooner or later, Walt should know, he'd been one of them.

As he lay there in the dark surrounded by memories that wouldn't leave him in peace and goosebumps rising on his skin the remnants of sleep dwindled. Walt's brain switched from mostly-asleep to awake and melancholic.

Braving the winter air Walt got up and wandered into the kitchen, flicking the knob on the stove, groggy from sleep he slopped five spoons full of coffee grounds before he filled the pot with water and reclined against the sink as he waited for it to boil. He scratched his bare chest, anticipating that a hot mug of coffee would see him the rest of the way into wakefulness.

The little digital clock at his bedside read 4:06 PM. He grins, it was a good thing he hadn't called Henry.

He would have gotten an earful for calling the man at this hour on a Saturday. It was his usual day off for one thing and it followed the 'Friday Night Madness' at the bar. It got busier on Friday nights and didn't let up till closing hour. Henry had the habit of looking a bit harried and frazzled at the edges on those nights.

Not that the customers could tell, mind. It was all in the faint lines of tension bracketing the corner of his mouth. It was the 'smile, for the customers' expression that all people who worked in public services learned to wear, which became a touch more strained. No, it wasn't obvious but Walt could see those things.

Forty hours a week it was his job to notice small details - after a while he stopped turning it off when he clocked out. So, he noticed things, sometimes, that others didn't. And he'd always noticed them about Henry in particular.

Walt flicked his eyes to the pot still quietly bubbling, but not quite boiling.

Maybe it was true - a watched pot really didn't boil.

Walt looked at the clock, one of the few things he had in the spartanly decorated cabin, and shook his head despairingly. Another night's sleep wasted as his brain turned itself inside out with decisions made and unmade. It wasn't much to look at but It had been a gift so he had held on to it over the years and he was glad of it now. It was a comfort to have a tangible link to the past, something he could look back at and know, it had been real once upon a time. Not some dream fever. He looked over at the clock and his blood rushed south, his mouth went dry, and he couldn't help but grin as he remembered the parts that were him and Henry, tearing off clothes, and crashing together with the force of a burgeoning storm.

His blood warmed as the memory wrapped itself around himself in technicolor detail in the way of an old lover's return.

It was funny, how objects could encapsulate moments. Little nick-knacks that became dream-catchers stuffed full of forgotten moments. He'd honestly forgotten about that night until that second. Walt had only been late that one time, not really but Walt refused to accept those other incidents, and Henry never let him forget it. Hence, the clock he still had sitting on a bedside table. It was equipped with a radio and alarm he never used.

Walt smiled, a small private thing that softened the hard line of his face, as he willingly fell backward in time.

Cady had turned twenty one and decided to celebrate by having a party and her first alcoholic drink at the Red Pony. Walt knew Henry had secretly been pleased with her decision even if he'd tried to convince her to go out to some swanky, high end bar the next county over but Cady would have none of that.

Henry had shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. Walt might have been staring, a little, but he'd been wearing something blue. Henry looked good in blue. And black. "Come on, you cannot really want to have it here? Would you not prefer somewhere with more kids your age to party with? You know Walt will try to make it, but he might not be able to Cady."

She had smiled wider, shrugging her shoulder. "I know that Henry! But this is your bar, the Red Pony! C'mon, please, please, please?"

Henry had relented, of course he had, he always did for Walt's daughter. "It is up to you, birthday girl. If you want to have it here then here it will be."

Cady had squealed with enough pitch to make both men wince. Her green eyes sparkling she lunged forward, latching onto Henry who caught hold of her with a _oo-mph_ of surprise. "Alright, alright," Henry said, once she had released him, "I will have to see if I can make this place respectable enough for the Sheriff's daughter."

Walt had laughed, a deep rumble that rolled up from his belly. "That might be a tall order. This place of yours is many things Henry, but I'm not sure 'respectable' can be one of 'em."

Henry's look had been positively waspish. "Why is it that I get the feeling you are not talking about my _bar_?"

Walt had grinned, threw back his drink and tugged a still beaming Cady under his shoulder. "Because you're a smart man, Henry"

Henry had been right, however, about Walt not being able to make it. Walt would hear about it the next weekend when he caught a break from work, he and Cady having decided on breakfast at the Busy Bee.

Walt didn't recall what she'd said, exactly, but her hair had been pulled back in a no-nonsense pony-tail. It was apt, her flame-red hair swishing as she talked, fast and excited even in the re-telling. No, he couldn't place what all she'd said, only that it had been a lot and she had glowed with quiet happiness. It had pleased him more than she'd ever know, just sitting there quietly listening to her babble of words.

His daughter was happy, what more could a father hope for? A career, a family someday, maybe. But Cady had time to figure those things out. Right then she had been living her life to its fullest and he couldn't be prouder.

Walt figured some part of him should have been upset Cady hadn't even missed him all that much on her twenty-first birthday but he wasn't. Henry, who was so much better than him at these things, made sure his daughter had a good - clean - night out on the town.

He was a lucky man, in that moment he'd known it more than ever.

He had tried to make it to her shindig but a shoot out, a nicked shoulder, and sudden downpour had conspired against him. Walt didn't make it to the bar until all the guests including the birthday girl had shuffled home. Instead of a group of rowdy college students looking to get drunk and dance with any willing body in their immediate vicinity Walt had gotten a private party of his own, upstairs in a too small bed. It had squeaked, a lot, that night.

And later the pointed gift of a watch.

Cady, who was so often her Godfather's co-conspirator, had bought the little time-keeper for him as a Christmas present, that, and an antique silver money-clip he couldn't bring himself to use. It went without saying, he knew who had really suggested the clock.

His line of work, Walt figured he'd either lose the clip, or it would end up with a perp. No, that he kept home. Safely displayed on a bookshelf holding onto a few folds of notes he'd collected over the years, a few from Martha, Henry, and a sentimental 'I love you, Daddy!' from twelve-year old Cady. Things that only had value to him and on one else ever needed to know he cherished as much as his Dickinson, Donne, or Whitman books.

It had been a hell of a night, Walt thought stuck in a daze of memory. The passage of time had dimmed the raw edges of it but he can still feel the heady rush of adrenaline shooting through his system when he and then-Sheriff Lucien had been boxed in at the Two Creek Ranch. Not exactly the OK Corral, but close enough to it back then.

He'd enjoyed the thrill a lot more those days.

Being young and stupid was a curse only time cured.

Lucien had known about Cady's shindig and sent him home to make apologies but Cady hadn't been there to greet him. His blood still singing from action he'd blown into the bar looking every inch the cowboy tumbling off the streets, dirt on his knees and a thin line of blood running from ear to cheek - he'd known it, too.

Henry had looked him up and down, grinning. "Everyone else has gone home."

Walt hadn't needed a clearer invitation than that. Hands on his body lead to kisses that stole his breath and the white-out rapture of really good sex. Floating in a blissed out cloud of satisfaction Walt had looked over at Henry stretched out asleep beside him, warm, because Henry was always so damn warm, and been so punch-drunk in love that it hurt. He hadn't said it, but he had stayed the whole night, and received one hell of a pleasant wake-up call...

Staring into the dark, waiting for the coffee to percolate, Walt scrubbed a hand over his face missing the memory as it drew farther and farther away. He also remembered what he thought later. Staring up at the ceiling that night, still trying to catch his breath, feeling sad that Sheriff Lucien had nothing waiting for him at home but his writing and his bourbon.

On a bright Sunday afternoon, while Walt and them were still new and freshly blooming, Lucien would turn to him as they walked down the street to the Busy Bee for lunch. His eyes twinkling with mischief he'd turned to Walt and said, "Son, some men get it all, and some don't. Don't you waste it, you lucky son of a bitch."

Walt doesn't know what he'd thought at the time, besides the hearty _"Oh, fuck"_ that he kept circling back to. It had probably shown as clear as a black printed newspaper headline on his face in those days but Lucien had said nothing more on the topic. All Walt remembered was that he'd been scared shitless, still trying to believe that the family he'd cobbled together was really his for keeps.

Time had given him clarity. Walt suspects he understood what the old man was getting at now, what neither one of them would have said because a man's love life was a private affair.

He knew why Lucien's words had left him treading shaky ground. He'd be staring at Martha and Henry who were leaning into one another, arm in arm, as they walked down the street across from Walt. There was nothing significant about the moment, this was not unusual. They had become fast friends - taken to one another like the sun to the moon, it had been more than Walt had ever dared to hope.

Henry and Martha would often - privately- commiserate over being tied to a workaholic lawman, loudly at the cabin where only Walt could hear and blush and stammer only for them to turn to one another and shush him with touching, kissing, and….well...He didn't mind their complaints terribly when that was the welcome back he received.

Walt remembered stopping on the sidewalk for a second, just to admire them, the light catching off raven's-wing black and cornflower-gold strands as they talked, the bright animation on their faces as they spoke.

Conspiring from the furtive looks they would shoot in Walt's direction. They had looked up at him as one unit and waved.

Walt had shuffled his feet, his face turning beet red as he waved back. He didn't understand at the time why he'd been so thrown off.

Lucien had slapped him on the back laughing at some private joke he didn't feel like letting him in on. "You're being summoned. Go on, get! I don't want to see your ugly mug until Monday, you hear?"

_Yeah. I'd been summoned alright. But no man had gone more willingly than Deputy Walt Longmire. Those had been some good times,_ Walt thought side eyeing the coffee pot as it began to boil.

The phone rang in the living room sounding like a Dark-Eyed Junco trilling at him for encroaching on his nest.

Walt huffed, blinking the sleep-crust from his eyes, feeling sufficiently indolent from lack of sleep. It was no good living in memory, but sometimes it helped ease the ache in the absence of warmth pressed to his side, or gold hair haloed on his pillow. He missed the makeup in his cabinet, the fancy lavender smelling soap, and foreign tea's stacked in sparse cabinets. He missed the sweaty tangle of limbs, breathless from lovemaking. Walt missed when it was him and _them_.

Sleep came hard some nights, he tossed and turned for hours before his unquiet mind allowed him to slip into the sweet nothingness of dreams. Over time he'd found that good dreams hurt worse than nightmares of blood, guts and entrails. When he dreamed of them his insides felt ripped to shreds, bleeding from unseen wounds. If there was no rest for the wicked and no peace for the good, what was the Goddamn point? Good, bad, they were all of them stuck howling at the same moon on restless nights. It didn't help that he had the power to change part of it, all he had to do was pick up the phone, that's it.

_Can I come over?_ He'd lost track of how many times he wanted to pick up the phone and ask. That's all he would have to say. No hello, how are you, what's new friend, just Walt quietly begging for a place to get out of the cold. To be less alone when the world got to feeling too big for a small town sheriff. That's it. All he needed to say and Henry would unlock the door, give him the key, and keep him warm for the night.

Henry was good like that, good to Walt like that. He would let him in. And then, in the morning his face still soft in the afterglow of making love he'd quietly let Walt go when the morning sun crested the sky. If that's what he needed, Henry would give it.

Henry would not shut that door, not to his bed and not to his home. He hadn't done so in 37 years, Walt could stake his life on that door being open. Even if he thought, maybe, he didn't deserve it.

Walt stalked over to the phone, shivering as he left the relative heat put off by the stove. He had not needed light to make his coffee instead leaving the kitchen in shadowy darkness. His choice came back to bite him on the ass when his big toe met the table with a slap. Walt cringed, cursing animatedly. He hopped the rest of the way to the light-switch feeling six different kinds of a fool and prayed nothing was broken. He could see the headline now _'Sheriff of Absaroka County Walter Longmire admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital. Injury: Broken big-toe.'_ Local news rags would eat that shit up and destroy his hard-ass reputation in the process.

In Walt's opinion they were dangerous things in the morning, corners. He was convinced it was a worldwide phenomenon, a morning ritual epidemic he'd once said. He cannot remember who he'd shared his thoughts with, Martha or Henry? He didn't know. It was equally likely he'd bitched to them both and they would have laughed at him for it.

Martha would have softened the sting by brushing his hair back behind his ear and kissing him on the mouth. God, he'd loved that woman.

Henry would have laughed and maybe, if he was lucky, made up for it in other ways when they were alone together in the dark. Maybe it would be kissing, or fucking, or both. But Walt'd never known until it happened and he was pulled along in the undertow that was Henry Standing Bear.

Walt was always willing to get tossed about in the face of his twin passions, Henry and Martha. The fixed points around which he had spent the better part of his life happily orbiting once upon a time. Walt fiercely missed those halcyon days with a strength that left half-healed wounds aching for want of more. Martha, bless her, was gone but he and Henry were still here, still picking up the pieces of one another with their bare hands. Cutting themselves down to bone on sharp edges, ragged hurts that left them bloodied. But still trying.

Once upon a time, two had been three.

Walt indulged himself for a half-second in the_ warm, wanted, and welcome_, feeling that he had been the epicenter of what felt like a lifetime ago. He shook it loose. It hurt too much to grasp what had long since crumbled to ash. Nothing in this world was meant to last forever. All that could be promised was the moment that existed between hello and goodbye.

Walt paused, thinking of Maugham and wondered. Was he being foolish for not taking happiness where he could find it, in what he still had left?

Walt froze with his hand on the phone.

After Martha died it had felt wrong to let himself feel anything good. Because of what they had, him and them, that had included Henry. It hadn't been either right or wrong. It had just been what he'd had to do, floundering in an ocean of black grief.

Henry had tried. Lord, he'd done more than anyone could have expected. Walt knew he had. It had been Walt who refused to take the rope he was being thrown - he'd almost drowned but that was on him not Henry. No, Henry had worn his sadness like armor, a badge of honor in memory of the woman they had _both_ loved.

Walt had needed space then and Henry had given it without ever letting Walt get so far adrift that he couldn't find his way back.

She would have been proud, Walt thought to himself. Henry had been the steady rock that remained planted in the middle of the wild river that Walt's grief had made of him. The river could run past, through, and over the rock but it could not uproot it.

Henry gave him time, but he had not been left alone in the dark, either.

Take out arrived unasked for, empty beer cans vanished, and on occasion they ate dinner together. Henry had not needed an invitation to do this, he had just done it in silent, unspoken understanding.

Martha would have boxed Walt's ears for this. It startled a chuckle out of him, imagining her face, stern and unimpressed, her beautiful heart-shaped face flush with anger as she pulled herself up to her full height of five feet and two inches. She never let Walt forget those two inches, either. She'd be kind, too. She would touch his face as she whispered in his ear 'Don't forget, he's hurting too, dear.' But he had, because no one else had reminded him. No one else had known. Martha had loved Henry, too.

"This is Walt," he said, grabbing the phone on the fifth ring.

"I should hope so, it is your phone," Vic snapped from the other end.

Walt imagined her with her athletic curves slouched in his chair with her boots up on his mahogany desk as she spoke. He was going to have to talk to her about that someday, she was leaving boot-scuffs on the mahogany wood that will be hard to fix.

"Anyways, Hugh Moore called in a prowler and since he lives in your neck of the woods it would be faster sending you than for me to haul ass over there to see what shadow he's jumping at tonight. It was trash-pandas last time you know," she explained as though the last eight words out of her mouth made perfect and logical sense.

Walt hummed absently and made a mental note to ask Henry what 'trash-pandas' was supposed to mean. Henry knew all that millennial, new-age talk, it came with the territory of running a bar.

The last time the English language had taken an ineffable turn had been with internet 'memes', back in '06. Sixteen year old Janet O'Malley had chased Donny Gilman, age seventeen, down front street with her little-league bat for posting a picture of her with a rude message on the internet that had gone viral.

He missed the days when viral meant someone had caught a nasty STD, or the claps.

It had been the talk of the town alright, but when the dust settled all anyone remembered was five-foot-nothing Janet in her pretty yellow sundress, scaring the hell out of the Gilman boy. Folk still laughed about that incident at the Half-Moon Café.

"Okay," Walt said. "I'll head over now."

"Okay."

The line went dead. Walt looked at the phone, his lip ticked-up in a faint smile as he made his coffee and threw on some clean clothes. Burrowing into his coat more than usual he started up the Bronco and headed out to Old Moore's cabin.

Walt's bear dream and the words itching at his throat became a distant afterthought, less and less vivid with each mile he drove. Walt hummed tapping his fingers on the wheel to a bluesy country tune. It was time to get to work and Vic was only half right. Old Moore's cabin wasn't near anyone's neck of the woods but it was a hell of a view - open plains a few miles from the Buffalo Horn mountain range which would be capped with white snow. He had the heat on cranked up all the way, the proof was fogging the windshield, making him squint to see the rain-slick roadway and black ice but it still wasn't enough. Walt couldn't get warm; perpetual chill had set up shop and it wouldn't budge.

Spotting the Moore's driveway Walt turned off the main road bracketed by rows and rows of winter-bare Elm trees. His high beams lit up the front porch and huge bay windows of the cabin but there was nothing exciting to see so he turned off the lights and got out to inspect the residence while Mr. Moore hunched against the wind on his floral decorated welcome mat. Walt took his time with a slow and methodical examination of the grounds same as he would for any other prowler call checking for footprints or tire-tracks that didn't belong to Moore's blue Ford and walked the perimeter of the house, just to be thorough.

Lots of things happened out in the woods at night and some of them were bad. A good man might fear the dark, but a bad man? He was always bravest when he was cloaked in absolute darkness - removed from light, removed from societal inhibition. No, Walt thought. He would do this right.

His flashlight caught reflected eye-shine from a family of racoons peering at him from the forest line and he sighed. Vic was right. Again. Sometimes the usual suspects really were the guilty party and shadows in the yard were just shadows, not that he'd be telling that to Mr. Moore who was watching from his porch bundled up in a wool parka and a red-checkered scarf as he waited to hear what Walt had to say.

Walt joined him, stepping up on the porch which provided some cover from the drizzle. His exhaled breath turned into a plume of fog-mist in the pre-dawn hours and he wished he had something hot to warm the chill creeping into his bones.

"Well, what was it?" Moore asked.

"Racoons," Walt explained. "You can tell Madeline there's nothing to be concerned about."

Moore was a nervously dispositioned man and it showed in the way his jaw ticked, hands fidgeting in his buckskin gloves. He was also predisposed to watching horror flicks before going to bed and that combined with his racoon visitors resulted in frequent calls to the station. Walt figured it was better that he called, even when it was nothing, rather than not call when someday it might be something. Even if it was a pain in the ass.

Mrs. Moore was quite unlike her husband in that respect and they both knew it. Madeline was more likely to blow a hole in an intruder and then call the station to report it but Walt let the man keep his pride as it was something of a sore subject between the couple. It would cost Walt nothing to soften the sting but it also served to keep a citizen happy and loyal for when voting season came calling.

Madeline studied them from the open door - as though invocation of her name made her appear.

She was a refined woman and wore her age well with laugh-lines crinkling at the corner of her Irish green eyes and her mouth turned up in a cupids-bow half-smile. Walt had always thought it gave her a secretive Mona Lisa air. Nearing sixty-three she had chosen to retain her natural grey, the ghost glow of moonlight catching at her silver plaited hair falling down her shoulder turned it to quicksilver.

"Walter? Did Mr. Moore drag you out of your bed again? Poor dear, I bet a cup of coffee would do you good," Madeline said already motioning for him to follow her inside. "It's no trouble to put on a pot."

"I'll have to take a rain-check, Madeline. You take care now," he said and tipped the brim of his Stetson politely.

"Thanks for coming out, Walt, we've had more travers down this way than usual and it makes me jumpy. But, I suppose you know that already," Moore said and if he was shuffling further back into his doorway like an awkward schoolboy who knew he'd get a paddling when the door closes Walt was wise enough not to comment.

People only nagged if they cared. It was when that stopped that a person knew they had either messed up beyond forgiving or else there wasn't anyone around to fuss over the mundane. In Wat's books Mr. Moore was a lucky man.

"Just doing my job," Walt replied, stepping off the porch and shuffling back to the Bronco. Sitting in the cab he cranked up the heat to thaw out the deep-freeze gnawing at his bones. This cold clinging to him felt unnatural; he hasn't been able to shake it or feel proper warmth since that strange dream.

Maybe he would swing by the Red Pony before work. He'd order up his morning favorite a Breakfast Special of hash and hot-cakes and see if some friendly palavering couldn't stop Jack Frost nipping at his heels. Just imagining the hot coffee and cozy warmth of his favorite Bar & Café was enough to suffuse Walt with warm glowy feelings of contentment.

It had been three weeks. Walt figures that was how long it'd been since he'd done more than see the bar, or Henry, in passing. He's not avoiding his friend, he's just been busy of late. It has nothing to do with the fact that he fell back into a familiar, old habit. Nothing. Didn't matter that it had been the best night he'd had in a long while. Best sex, too.

Crime didn't stop just because the sheriff was, maybe, having himself a bit of an existential crisis over falling into bed with his best friend. Again.

Crime never slept. There had already been two robberies and one attempted kidnapping of a local waitress, Mandy Hall. She'd had mace and a pair of pipes that could wake the dead. She screamed so loudly Half-Deaf Joe the barber came running out of Beards and Shears armed with his .38 Smith & Wesson and ready to be Mandy Halls' white knight in plainclothes. The would-be abductor had fled and the trail went cold fast without witnesses or identifying marks beyond the grey Wolverines, West Yellowstone High sweater the suspect had been wearing and that he'd been Caucasian with brown hair. Walt figured that placed the suspect in the early to late twenties range and he either attended West Yellowstone High or he'd picked up the clothes somewhere else but Walt would place bets that the sweater belonged to the suspect.

The attack on Mandy Hall had been sloppy, unplanned and he'd escaped by running behind the shop where he'd stowed his vehicle. Only way to secure her compliance without a weapon would have been a fire-man hold.

Impractical in such an open space as main street.

Walt had looked at grainy low quality footage at lousy angles until his eyes itched and his ass was numb in his chair trying to find his suspect but he hadn't been able to close the distance - he hated it. He kept waiting for the call to come in, the one that said someone else's daughter, sister, mother had disappeared and he could have stopped it. He was doing everything he could but there were some cases where it just wasn't enough no matter what.

Walt had learned a long time ago to take the win's and the losses as they came. Not everybody was going to come home alive. That was just the job.

Still, guilt hung around his neck like the Ancient Mariner's albatross.

Walt pulled into his destination and sat in the cab for a moment, glaring at the neon 'closed' sign disrupting his plans for a little conversation and good food. His glowy sentiments from earlier faded into a moody, dark spiral. Should he have called ahead? He could have. But then, he'd never felt the need to do so before. Deciding not to jump the gun Walt got out slamming the cab door with a thwack, fishing out his spare key with hands that had gone numb he opened the door and let himself into the Red Pony.

He passed chairs neatly stacked on top of tables and took the stairs in twos fully prepared to be faced with a very irate bear of the real and not-a-dream sort when he threw open the door to Henry's private room above the bar. The apology on his lips remained unspoken as he took in the empty space: an unmade bed, and thin layering of dust.

Henry had not been here for some time. He is not entirely sure if he's relieved or upset about that. What was he going to say? Did he need to say anything at all? Walt sighed, rubbing at his temples in frustration. _Yeah, at least a 'sorry for being a dick', would be alright,_ Walt thought as he frowned taking in the room, the new book on the desk that hadn't been there before, the sprig of dried sage on the small table Henry used for eating. He hated that there had been changes, small details, that were unfamiliar. When had Henry started reading Ian Hacking's _The Social Construct of What?_ Walt didn't know and it bothered him more than he wanted to admit that he didn't have an answer. Had he been gone that long? He didn't think he had, but he'd been wrong before.

"Hey, is the boss back?" a woman asked. Walt swung around to face her, the surprise must have been clear on his face because she laughed, a light airy sound that was meant to set him at ease. It did. Now that he was looking properly he recognized her face from his frequent visits.

She had been the pretty, dark eyed, and dark haired woman in the background waiting tables and stacking chairs at closing.

"Sorry. I did not mean to startle you Sheriff. I'm Amy White Feather. On the rare occasion that Henry leaves town I am in charge. It's a pain, but the money is good," Amy said leaning around his bulky frame to glance into the empty room.

Walt could see there was something more she wanted to say. Concern dimmed the corners of her thin-lipped smile and frown lines beaded between the black arch of her brows.

"I didn't even know he was gone" Walt replied, trying not to sound upset.

It wasn't his right.

He had been the one to distance himself in the first place.

Another regret he could add to the tally. Fuck, he'd gone about this all halfcocked and stupid thinking with his dick when he knew there were feelings on the line.

Amy White Feather crossed her arms defensively. "I called the _Rez_ after the first couple days, you know? But he was not there either."

Henry was a grown man who could come and go as he pleased.

He didn't need Walt's say-so.

Walt tapped his foot to mask his irritation, his eyes wandering around the empty room. He might have expected plans to have at least been mentioned. But that was before, and he hadn't been around had he? This was one, it was on him.

Shutting the door to Henry's room Walt backtracked down the stairs aware of Amy White Feather's dainty, light steps close at his back.

Walt crossed his arms and surveyed the building but nothing jumped out at him, no new scuff marks, bullet holes, or signs of any struggles that would indicate a problem that required a sheriff's attention. There was nothing tangible to explain this feeling he had. It was like being dumped in tar with ants crawling all over his body, something was wrong and he knew it in his gut. But there wasn't a single rational explanation he could thumb his finger at, either.

He didn't like this second roadblock. If Henry wasn't here and he wasn't at the_ Rez_ then where was he?

Unease sat like a stone in Walt's gullet because now he felt the world might as well be hanging a sign post that read:_ 'Talk To Henry Standing Bear.'_

And karma, the conniving bitch, was laughing at him now for all shit he hadn't said and done._ 'To late, now'_ she was cackling as the storm brewed on the horizon. _Oh fuck you,_ Walt thought mulishly. This wasn't over, not by a long shot.


	3. Chapter 3

Amy White-Feather knew more than she was telling and Walt couldn't figure if it was because of guilt by association or something else. He didn't like to think she had anything to do with Henry's sudden sojourn to places-unknown but he couldn't rule out the possibility, either. She kept fiddling with the charms on her bracelet and looking off to the left of his face when he tried to make eye contact as she'd gone to stand behind the bar, classic signs of evasion.

"Amy you know something you're not telling me. I need you to tell me what, exactly, that is because you won't look me in the eye and you've been fidgeting since I got here. This tells me you're either lying or evading," Walt said stepping forward and bracing his arms against the bar from the opposite side.

Amy folded like a cheap lawn chair under Walts gentle badgering. "It is nothing, I think. But there was some trouble a few weeks back, just before Henry left."

Amy paused crossing her arms in front of her chest defensively. Walt said nothing letting her take a moment to gather her thoughts.

"There was a customer here" she explained, "handsome, for a white boy and I let him buy me a few drinks. I'm not supposed to accept drinks when I'm working...but I did that day. I finished my shift and this guy, he wanted me to go off with him but I said no."

"He did not like that," she said and when her eyes flicked up they were filled with bitter indignation. "He called me a dirty, whoring squaw right here in the bar and one one said a damn thing about it, just kept drinking and eating like I was invisible."

"I have a hard time believing Henry let that pass, Amy."

She laughed, bell soft and pretty as a Nightingale. "So, you _do_ know him then," she said, hair waving in a dark banner as she shook her head.

"Henry told him to get the fuck out of his bar and that as proprietor of the _Red Pony _he could reserve the right to refuse anyone service," Amy paused frowing, "that man, his face, it turned ugly, Sheriff. I don't know how else to describe it. Terrible as this is I remember how glad I was that he wasn't looking at _me._"

"I wanted to call you but Henry said not to, that he would take care of it."

"Yeah, well, Henry isn't always right, and he sure isn't the law."

"Did this man pay with his credit card?" Walt asked suddenly, feeling more and more certain that this problem customer would be his first lead. He felt like slamming his hand down on the countertop when she shook her head in refusal. Walt did not like the image that was beginning to form: an unhappy customer returning to the _Red Pony _after hours and attacking the owner who threw him out on his ass.

"Had you seen him here before the incident?" Walt asked.

Amy shook her head a dark blush heating her cheeks. "No, I did not. I, uh, think I would have noticed."

"Right, handsome, got it," Walt said. "I'm going to need you to come by the station and speak to Hank Ellis, get a sketching."

If they had a rendering of the man it would go a long way towards narrowing the suspect pool. He'd have Vic call in Hank. Illustrator for _The Absaroka Times_ who moonlighted as sketch artists for _Absaroka Police Department_ and town flirt who drew girls the same as honey to a bee with his old-timey Southern charm.

"Walt? I, I would have said something sooner but Henry did leave a note. He micromanages this place you know? He's put his sweat and blood into this establishment. Leaving for so long? This is not like him" Amy said, her words breaking Walt free of his internal monologuing.

"Yeah, it's starting to look that way."

Amy turned her back to him as she rummaged through the stack of papers beside the phone, nimbly plucking out a yellow sticky-note he hadn't seen because he'd been in a rush to Henry's private room above the bar.

_Gone hunting in Wichita. _

"Ah, hell!" he muttered the bottom falling out from under his feet. Walt sat down abruptly, glad for the wood chair his ass ended up in because he felt as though he'd been kicked in the chest by a wild horse and could have just as easily found himself on the floor. So far as he could tell there were two problems here, one was the unspoken understanding that they took these kinds of trips together always had, and always would. Walt loved Absaroka county but he couldn't claim he didn't love those trips together more. It wasn't always easy but he made time. Because that's just what you did, make time for people. The second problem is Henry had hated hunting in Wichita and the hate had been mutual seeing as how they had been all but run out of town like a pair of no account saddlebums. He and Henry had taken a trip up that way to see about those feral hogs they'd read about in the papers but the real problems had been of the two-legged and racist kind.

"When you find him? Tell him I want a raise."

"Okay," Walt said stuffing his hat back on his head as he stood back up. Now that his legs weren't feeling as wobbly as a newborn colts. That stone of un ease he's been hauling around? Well, now it's becoming a boulder lodged in his chest. Intuition can be a powerful tool but he can't run off halfcocked.

He needs more than instinct to go on, what he needs is a trail. To damn bad it's the best tracker in the county he seems to have lost.

"_A bear lost in the eye of a storm," _he thinks recalling his strange dream and a shiver goes down his spine that has nothing to do with climate. He doesn't need Ada Black Kettle to interpret what those disappearing tracks from his dream mean for Henry in real life.

Mouth pulled in a tight line Walt blew out of the bar leaving the saloon doors swinging wild in his wake but halted suddenly at the outside entrance to the bar, head canted up to inspect the security camera Henry had installed in '09 when their had been a rash of local robberies.

As the county sheriff he had suggested that the town was growing and it would only continue to do so and extra security measures were only logical. Now, it would appear his badgering was going to pay off.

Walt turned on his heel and stuck his head back inside through the door and hollered for Amy White-Feather who came running out her cheeks pink with exertion.

"Sheriff?" she asked, expression jittery as a june bug.

Walt just pointed at the camera and the cut wires. Walt observed as Amy's mouth fell open in a little 'O' of surprise as she drew in quick, shallow breaths. It was clear to Walt her shock was genuine and he mentally cut her loose as a potential suspect.

"I take it you hadn't noticed," Walt said.

"I - I have not had a reason to check the security feed," Amy admitted, "there haven't been any problems. I will get you the footage."

She disappeared into Henry's office and Walt could hear shifting papers and things being moved but she returned within minutes with the footage on a small black memory-stick. Walt took the device from her hands and left the bar for the second time, planning to review the feed from the laptop he kept in his office at the station. This, whatever this was, had involved some planning - not like Mandy Hall who had been a blitz attack of opportunity. Odds were the camera had been cut prior to Henry's abduction and Walts missing person case had just become a kidnapping.

Seated in the relative privacy of _the Bronco_ he slammed his hand down on the wheel hard enough that his hand stung from the force of the self-inflicted blows. He looks away for a minute, one Goddamn minute, and already the world is conspiring to take the last good thing he has going for him.

It's a dickish thing to think, he's safe and Henry is God knows where.

Walt blows out a breath staring down at his hands - they're shaking a little. Minute tremors from the cocktail of pain, nerves, and lack of food catching up and biting him in the ass. That had been a stupid thing to do and he knows it because now Ruby's going to give him the Look and ask what happened to his hand. How's he supposed to tell her? He's been blindsided. He wasn't prepared. He couldn't loose Henry, not like this.

"_If anything happens to him because I was too distracted, too chicken shit to say what I wanted, to pick up the fucking phone…"_ He grips the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white.

Walt figures there must have been signs he missed because he hadn't been paying attention. It was no excuse but he'd been to caught up in his own dealings, his job, and calculating the potential fall out from having had sex for the first time since Martha died.

"Enough" Walt growls to himself, "enough."

Time to stow the pity party and lock down anything else he might be feeling that was going to get in the way. The signs might have been there but Walt hadn't been paying attention to the _right_ details and if the spirit-world had been trying all along to send him a message? Well, dammit, he was listening now. Walt turned the key in the ignition and did what he had planned to do before this business at the _Red Pony_ cropped up, go to work at the station as he usually does.

Ferguson was crammed into his chair flipping through paperwork when Walt arrived at the station and Vic was staring at papers of her own her elegant blonde brows pinched in annoyance. She transferred that look to him as soon as he stepped through the door. Vic hated getting shot at as much as filing paperwork - they had that in common.

"What the hell took you so long, Walt?" she asked, her sharp cat-green eyes narrowing as she looked him over.

Checking for bullet holes, or other indicators to what had held him up, no doubt. "I caught a case and the trails running cold," Walt said, "it's Henry Standing Bear, he's missing, the circumstances are more than a little suspect."

"Oh no," Ferguson said, rising from his chair fast enough that it creaked and groaned, skidding back a few paces.

"Where do we start? What do we know?" Ferguson asked, the deep frown he worn adding a sternness to his baby-face. He was resolved but he also looked like he'd taken a bite out of a lemon.

Walt sympathized. Realizing the case you were working was about someone you knew always made things harder, feelings getting in the way and shit. But in a town this size and the limited resources available it wasn't like handing it off was an option. Not that he would if he could. Not when it was about Henry.

"This is what we know. A woman working at the _Red Pony_, Amy White-Feather, was hassled by a customer and things got heated," Walt said pacing as he turned over the facts in his head, "Instead of calling me, the sheriff, as he should have done, Henry forcibly evicted the customer from his bar."

Walt rubbed his chin absently, his look far away. "This man is our prime suspect because after being thrown out of the bar Henry's gone missing and no one has seen, or heard from him in roughly three weeks."

"Walt, do we even know what this suspect looks like?" Vic asked, coming to stand in front of Walt with her hands balled on her hips, head tilted back to meet him eye for eye. "And we're sure this isn't just a case of, oh, I don't know? Miscommunication? He's gone on business trips before, right?"

Walt turned a hard look on Vic and an inscrutable exchange passed between them in complete silence that had the deputy throwing up her hands in exasperated surrender. "Fine, fine," she said, "you need me to start up your laptop, or do you think you can handle it?"

"Amy White-Feather is going to be here in twenty minutes. She had to lock up the bar before leaving," Walt said, blowing past her questions without apology. He didn't have time for trading barbs. Henry was missing and he was damned if he was going to let those tracks disappear for real. The tracks were fading with each delay. He couldn't afford any more slip-ups - neither could Henry. Three weeks suddenly sounded like three months. Either way, it was a day, a minute, a second, too long.

How ironic. Only this morning he'd been so certain that was the one thing he did have on his side, time.

"Vic, call in Hank Ellis and get him down here. He needs to have a sit down with Amy White-Feather." Walt entered his office leaving the door open and stared out the little window overlooking the town watching two women hurry into the _Milton__General Store _an epiphany struck and he shouted for Ferg.

"Yeah?" Ferg said, poking his head inside.

"Go ahead and call in Mandy Hall, too."

"Got it" Ferg said, pausing half inside the threshold of Walt's office. "Walt...what are you thinking?"

"I don't know," Walt said, "that's what I need to find out."

Walt knew there was something he was missing and talking to the two potential kidnap victims would help him see the bigger picture. Amy White-Feather was accosted at _the Red Pony_ and Mandy Hall was approached outside _Bears & Shears. _In a county this size what were the chances that it wasn't the same guy? Walt leaned back in his chair and plugged the black memory-device into the port.

He saw a lot of people coming and going but it was strange to see himself enter the bar and drink a _Rainer_ on the screen. He knows it happened, he can see it happening, Henry joining him for three or four minutes across the bar serving him a second _Rainer _and a burger and he sees himself laugh. But he can't pick out that one moment from the blur the last weeks have become. He wishes like hell he remembers that moment. What made him laugh like that? He'll never know. Walt tries not to think too hard about the fact that it might be the last chance he had to shoot the breeze, drink beer, and just be with Henry.

He'd only watched forty minutes of footage from the bar when Amy White-Feather, Hank Ellis and Mandy Hall arrived at the station. He hit pause and stood up.

"Amy, this is Hank Ellis it would be real helpful if you would give him a description of the man who accosted you at Henry's bar," Walt said signaling for Ferg to move out of his chair and dragged a chair over for Ellis who tipped the brim of his white Stetson in thanks as he seated himself.

Walt gave them breathing room so as not to hover but stayed close enough to hear leaning against the wall unobtrusively as he could make all six-feet and three inches of himself.

"He was handsome enough, white, he had brown hair...a Superman jaw, you know? But a light beard too, a bit like...a lumber-jack or construction worker," Amy White-Feather said huffing out a resigned breath the silver of her bracelet flashing as she waved her hand in the universal gesture for _what can I say? _

"That is why I almost left with him after all."

"Well unless the times have changed that rules out lawyer and banker and adds half the town to the sheriffs suspect list," Ellis remarked a twinkle in his pale blue eyes that had Amy White-Feather smiling with him and sitting more comfortably. Ellis turned his attention back to his work and Walt could hear the artists pencil scratch-scratching as he sketched on his drawing pad.

If Walt were a different sort of man he'd be jealous of his easy way with women. But presently it was useful. After all, accurate recall was harder when a person was all locked up in defense mode.

"Eyebrows?" Ellis asked wiggling his own at Amy White-Feather who laughed, still that pretty Nightingale chime.

"They were average I guess. Not bushy but they were not manicured either. He must have had a glass nose, though. It looked like it had been broken a few times, does that help?" Amy White-Feather asked craning her head to look back at Walt.

"It helps Amy," Walt said moving from the wall and looking down at the drawing over Ellis' shoulder. Walt took the pad but was unable to place a name to the face that was beginning to form in clean black lines.

"Mandy, does this look like the man who tried to kidnap you?" Walt asked, handing her Ellis' sketch.

She shook her head. "Sorry, Sheriff. I never saw his face." She frowned, scrunching up her nose in a way that even Walt could see why half the local boys were gone on her. "But there is this one thing I remember, a logo on his sweater - it looked sort of like a ferret or opossum? And the words, they were in yellow I think."

Walt froze at the same time Amy White-Feather spoke up.

"He was wearing a grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High _sweater, wasn't he?" Amy White-Feather asked fiddling with the feather charm on her bracelet.

"Yes" Mandy said her whole face lit up brightly, "I don't know why I couldn't remember that. How did you know that?"

"Because that was what the guy at the _Red Pony_ was wearing," Amy White-Feather said looking over at Walt. "What are the chances, hmm?"

"I should have remembered that!" Mandy said, wheat-gold hair bounding around her face as she shook her head. "Sorry, I guess I just didn't want to think about it once it was over," she said, leaning into the hand Amy White-Feather had put on her shoulder.

"Don't you worry, honey. You remembered when it counted that's what matters" Ellis said patting her hand before turning to Walt. "So, Sheriff, looks to me like my work here is done, you've got your sketch and from the look on your mug, I'd hazard a guess that you've a lead, too."

"Thanks, Ellis" Walt said, "I'll make sure you get that check."

"You know what, Sheriff" Ellis said, glancing sideways at Mandy. "Just this once, it's on the house. A good cause and all."

"Okay" Walt said, shaking Ellis' hand and showing him out the door. Last he heard Ellis was sweet-talking Mandy and Amy White-Feather into drinks at the _Half-Moon Cafe_ as they descended the stairs. Ellis' smooth, southern-accents and the girls soft laughter echoing in the halls.

Pouring himself a mug of coffee under Ruby's disproving watch Walt went back to the laptop and stared at the image on the screen. There was a man at the bar wearing a grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High _sweater, what were the chances? Not saying a word to Gerg and Vic who watched him curiously Walt printed out the image and compared it to the sketch in his hand. They were a match.

Vic looked between the two and cursed, "Christ Walt, this is the guy Mandy and Amy identified. He's even wearing his ugly ass high school sweater."

"There's just one thing that doesn't make sense. Why'd this loser go from attempted kidnappings of two women to a man? It's not like Henry is even vaguely adrogenous, you know. Why didn't this guy just…" Vic trailed off cutting a look at Walt's face. It didn't look good, he knew, he feels like he's swallowed ash and ants are crawling in his veins. Ruby was right, he shouldn't have had that second coffee.

"Kill him? That's what you were going to say, wasn't it," Walt said. "I don't know why, okay, it doesn't make sense to me either."

Vic paced, stopped, and turned fully toward Walt. "It's been three weeks, Walt. We don't know that he's still alive."

"We don't know that he's dead, either," Walt countered, "He - Henry isn't dead. He isn't."

"Walt's right, Vic. We don't know why, or how, or anything at all yet. But what we do know is that this guy is involved," Ferg said flicking the photo sharply as though by some pbscure magic the jab will transfer to the man they're hunting. "I'll take this photo and ask around, see if anyone remembers seeing him."

"You're right, without a body we work this like a rescue not - like a rescue. Okay, gimme one of those," Vic said snatching up one of the photos as she shrugged into her coat. "You take the north side, I'll take the sought, we'll meet in the middle."

Walt followed Vic and Ferg down the steps on autopilot. He paused at the top backlit by the rising sun. He bowed his head and sent up a silent prayer, just one. _God. Don't let him be dead._


	4. Chapter 4

_Wolf Creek Campgrounds, Wyoming_

_Kidnapping: Week Two_

Be silent. They said. A hand clamped over his mouth when he cried out unable to keep it bottled inside, rattling like crushed glass in his throat. He tried to speak but the words cut him up as they fell out, pinpricks of small sharp agonies that pulsed, nerves sparking like livewires that snaked through his body.

Be still. They said. Rough hands raked over tanned skin, goosebumps raised along naked limbs; they painted his body with blood and bruises, blunt nails digging half-moon grooves into his hips. He became their bloodied canvas of living, breathing flesh - each night they added a new layer of red.

Connoisseurs of the little death, he was now more _Picassian_ abstract than man as they rearranged his parts to suit their desires. If he looked into a mirror would he even recognize who stared back? Would it be him looking back or black, empty sockets with no eyes.

Stitched together strawman. They said. He pressed his hand over his ears to drown out the crashing, cackling, laughter as they said it again and again, shiny black-eyed crows pecking at open wounds. Whore. They said. Pressing bitter and salt into his mouth, he was sick with it, even as they touched with false-kindness moving him in ways he did not want to be moved. 'No' he thought, but what was one voice shouted into a storm? A penny dropped into the Atlantic seabed.

Be quiet. They said. In by inch cracking him open until everything that was meant to be secret and hidden below the surface was laid bare to open skies and prying eyes and grasping hands that took and took and took.

Fangs sank into the meat of his neck. Marking. Pink ragged edged wounds that would never heal. He gouged red weeping lines into his own flesh - aching to feel something besides the cold numbness filling his empty corners.

_'Time, time is the great healer'_ he thought, but did not believe in the places where it might matter. His spirit was the last flickering of a dying fire, burning solely to spit in the eye of the storm that smothered. It was not enough. How could it be?

Be still. They said once more. Devouring him whole, wolves eating of the caribou as it still breathed, slowly dying in the dirt as life-blood stained the snow black. He was submerged, head forcibly driven below the surface of a Stygian river of violent death. He struggled to break the surface and they stole the breath from his lungs, rushing inside, taking him over.

Demons that he could not exorcise from his body.

_'No more'_ he thought, as he fell backward into its violent embrace, the rushing of the river.

He was too tired to swim for that faraway shore, the gleaming mirage of golden sand and hope flickered before his eyes. His limbs were exhausted from thrashing and kicking against them as they tore at him, teeth and claws gouging deep below the skin.

Distantly he felt calloused fingers and a strong, familiar grip tugging at his wrist.

Was someone calling his name?

He knew that voice...surly, bullheaded, and loved.

_'Henry? Don't you be dead, you hear?'_

Henry did not speak, made voiceless by the water rushing over him, an invisible prison that caged his words deep inside. No matter, it was too late, he was too far under to break the surface. He surrendered - let the water take him where it will.

It lashed against him and he did not fight as he began to sink, down, down,_ down_ he fell into the soundless abyss.

He had no breath to cry out for help - there was no one here but him.

Who would come if he found the voice to call out?

There were only monsters, here in the murky dark.

Someone was reaching, a hand grasping into the black uncaring of the things that lurked below the surface. Did he not see the wreck they had made of him? A rusted knife with a blunted edge, a storyteller who had forgotten the words.

Useless...

No, he would not answer.

_'Henry!'_

He was too cold, all warmth that he had once known dwindled down to cinders and ash that would no longer burn.

He closed his eyes.

Henry came awake gasping his eyes rolling and wild as he struggled, restrained limbs thrashing as he fought to drag in huge lungs full of air. It had felt like thrashing inside an invisible prison until his will gave out and he no longer had the strength to try, bogged down by watery weights that pulled him into the deep. He could almost taste it on his tongue, the bitter tang of salt water gushing into his lungs, he wanted to wrap his arms around his stomach as phantom pain ricocheted down his ribs and torso. He lay there on the mattress half curled in on himself breathing hard through his mouth while he worked to calm the clamoring of his heart _thunk-thunk_ it went, pounding against his breastbone as though it might break free its fleshy prison. He felt like he had been drowning; his chest aching, limbs tired from thrashing against an ocean of water that did not exist anywhere except in his head. Exhaling a ragged breath Henry dropped his head onto his arm.

"What the fuck," he muttered, cringing at the sweat beaded on his face. "Walt" he said, in answer to the vision dream, his voice cracking even as he whispered it into the silence of the room. His mouth shaped the word, a silent mouthing of the unspoken, again and again, but he did not speak it for fear that he might never stop.

He folded in on himself as much as he could, blinking the wet film of tears from his eyes. He hated that part of him wanted to curl up and just...sleep until all this became something lesser, as though it was some dream he could shake free of. He knew better, but still, the desire lingered. Every inch of him ached. Locked in permanent stasis, time ceased to have meaning; days passed in the blink of an eye, and moments became infinite. Had it only been two weeks? It was hard to tell, but he did not think it had been much more than that.

He knew he was growing far too used to it, this new pain, it was becoming more and more a part of him with each day that passed and yet the unpleasant shock of it remained as fresh as a wound newly cut.

_'Lie still,'_ they said and he did.

_'Open your mouth,'_ they said, and the pale gleam of a knife pressed to his jaw ensured compliance.

_'Be quiet,'_ they snarled, pressing him down into the mattress that squeaked as much as his own bed at the Red Pony. He would need a new one, if he returned home. Every time he heard the metal springs screech he would become entangled in the memory of this.

He had a choice he supposed. It just was not a very good one.

He tried fighting and it had not worked, this was not a movie, the restraints did not miraculously begin to loosen no matter how hard he pulled, or how desperately he prayed that they might - the blood flaking his wrists were proof enough.

He had tried.

Short of a conveniently abandoned paper-clip the only other option was that of the trapped wolf who chewed through its own paw in a last bid for freedom. It was a choice, in a way, but it was not one he would act upon. He lived, he breathed, so long as there was that there existed the chance, however slim, that he might find a way to escape.

For each will, there was said to exist a way. He just had not found the door to it yet. _Enough,_ he scolded, something hot and fiery rising, smothering the wellspring of pity.

As he calmed the mad racing of his heart he saw the pale slivers of sunlight breaking through the dim RV lightening on the bed in scattered rays of gold. It was such a small, pretty thing, light piercing the dark with bright sunshine that he could not resist turning his face into it. He leaned his body into the places it touched on the mattress; if he closed his eyes it left the soft impression of a light embrace, a lingering warmth, like a feather-soft caress trailed against skin that was now broken open and bloodied in places he did not wish to examine.

It was pleasant to feel the warm kiss of the midday sun.

Martha's hair had looked like that to him; strands of gold stolen from the sun that shone as vividly as her white-hot spirit. That woman had been full of life, right up to the end, and even as she parlayed with Death she had not let her inner self be dimmed by the cancer. She had been an admirable woman and he and Walt had been very lucky men. He did not know why he thought of her now, of all times, but he did not regret it.

Her memory settled over him like a balmy Summer's evening, the ghost of her lips against his cheek a welcome escape.

Wyoming had been buzzing with life, green sprig's popping up from the ground, little shoots struggling against the dirt in their quest for sunlight, red-throated hummingbirds hunting for nectar from purple budded lupin's, yellow zinnia's, and shell-pink bleeding heart's. It was possible he had picked up a few things from Martha's short lived attempt at gardening.

Martha stood behind him but he knew she was there, he always did, he could scent the faint lavender perfume he knew that she dabbed at the hollow of her neck and below the curve of her breasts. He spoke her name into the quiet hush of evening, his eyes still fixed on the setting sun that lit up the rolling hills of the Longmire property.

"Martha."

She snorted, ruining her perfect angel-of-the-house image, and Henry felt another tug of gentle fondness swell up in his chest.

She stood with her arms crossed, head tilted to the side as she studied him, in a way that was oddly familiar. It was the look he most often saw on Walt's face as the man tried to figure out a clue to a case, or sometimes, when the man was looking at him.

Why he should find him a great puzzle Henry did not know.

Martha had her blond hair pulled back in a messy bun and there was a spot of white flour on her forehead.

She had been baking a pie.

"What are you doing out here by yourself Henry?"

Henry smiled, softly brushing the flour from her skin. "I thought I would give you and Walt a moment alone."

She huffed, a soft breathy sound that had him turning to look over, curious. "Well, you don't need to do that Henry."

She stepped in close enough that the scent of lavender became stronger, filling his senses as they quietly stood on what would become the cabin porch. She reached out, her small hands, delicate but strong, resting over his absently drumming fingers, quelling his restless movement.

"Come inside, Henry. It's getting late."

Henry frowned. "Late? It is barely evening, Martha."

"Come on, handsome," Martha said, insistently pulling at his hand as she tried to lead him inside the cabin. He did not wish to go, it was peaceful standing here on the precipice balanced between the now and then.

"Henry, you can't stay out here. We - we both are always missing something if you're not there, you know? Besides, you know how he is - Walt is waiting on you Henry."

Henry hummed, staring out into the forest line thinking about how he wished Summer would never end. If he could just linger, living in this moment extended into an endless loop he would not mind.

Henry had everything he could have ever wanted right here, at his side, and a few feet away inside, salivating over baked sweets. He had them, it was only a greedy man who could desire more than his.

He was many things, but not that.

"We could not have that," Henry said, turning to Martha, his hand brushing a strand of blond hair from her cheek because he could, because he was allowed.

Martha nudged him along, not wanting him to be left alone even with all the beauty of nature lighting up the view. "No, we couldn't. Besides, Walt might eat all the pie! Best hurry up, it's apple, you know."

Martha smiled wryly at his look of surprise, as though she were disappointed that he thought she had not remembered.

Apple was his favorite.

Henry ducked his head, feeling like a gently chided school-boy, a smile breaking free across his face as he followed her into what would someday be their cabin.

Martha turned at the entrance, looking at Henry with sadness that felt out of place as she stretched out her hand, "Walt is still waiting on you, honey."

Martha was still holding onto his hand but they were no longer outside the cabin. Henry did not know where he was at all, but everything was white at the edges, somewhere behind her he could see smoke pillaring from a chimney. He wondered who lived in that cabin, so isolated and far from the many comforts of civilization.

Omar, Omar Rhodes lives there, Henry thought, he and Walt had tracked a thief down that way once, though Henry knew not why it mattered. Why was he shown such a thing now?

"Henry?" Martha said, squeezing his hand tightly. "Don't you give up. He's waiting, he's looking, I promise."

Henry jolted out of the memory and his body protested the sudden movement. That was not what she had said that night. Martha's voice, soft and haunting, echoed in his thoughts. 'Walt is still waiting.' He blew out an annoyed _ppft,_ but could not bring himself to be angry with even the ghost of Martha. He was the one who was left out, waiting, trying to hold the pieces of Walt together, hoping that what lay between them was not gone; a bridge washed out by a tide of shared grief. And it was shared but Walt forgot these things when it suited him sometimes.

Henry never gave up on his friend because even if Walt was not a perfect man, he was a good one. He was worth it of course but fuck, sometimes it had hurt being shut out like the dog on the porch. For a second as Henry waded through the haze of memory he would swear he could see her, as bright and lovely as she had ever been in life. No translucent vision for Martha, she looked real enough to touch, to hold, her blue sundress illuminated in the pale glow of the midday sun.

He blinked and she was gone but he could not forget she had come into his waking dreams like a vision of gold that brought with her the all the warmth of a Summer's eve.

She had not said those words in this life, not that night or any other night after. Had it happened like that? What had really happened that night, if not that? He shivered, unsure what it was he felt, his throat becoming dry at the phantom press of Martha's lips at his cheek, her words a soft summer breeze ghosting across the shell of his ear. Henry closed his eyes tight, breathing in the scent of lavender that had permeated the room so strongly that for a moment it drowned out the musky smell of sex that he was now stuck with until one of the men came through the place with Febreeze or, fuck, bothered to clean the sheets. It lingered with him a spell, the welcome scent of lavender, the taste of apple pie, a gentle lull shrouding him where he lay. In the end it did not matter.

Had she really been here? Of course not that would have been impossible. Henry wrapped himself up in the memory of her all the same, stealing the warmth he could from her ghostly kiss, nothing more than a memory overlaying a reality he wanted no part of. It was not usually so warm but Henry did not question it taking his small pleasures where he could in the midst of this nightmare.

He soaked up the sun, shivers breaking out across his naked skin. He could not remember the last time anything had felt so nice.

He was alone for now. He could allow this small indulgence of pale warmth against his skin. A fleeting touch that held no weight. In a few hours time the light would shift, and he would be left to the bitter embrace of confining darkness. It would move and he would be unable to follow. He was the guest who could not leave.

They came and went with their camera and its red recording dot and Henry decided he was to disturbed by what happened within the thin walls of this RV to be bothered about what happened when they finally left him alone to stitch the pieces of himself back together again. He had fewer pieces with each parting.

_I wish I had closed up the bar and stayed in bed that night. I wish I had not taken out the trash bin. I could have done it in the morning. I wish...I had called Walt. Maybe he would have even picked up for a change,_ Henry thought, finding it amusing in a grim way to imagine what he might have even said to Walt. He really did not know. He thought, _'how about we get very drunk and never speak of it again'_ might have been worth mentioning, even if it made his insides ache to even consider speaking. It was pointless wonderings because he had not done any of those things but he found it a comfort to think of Walt Longmire, living in the world beyond the confines of this RV doing his job and locking up the bad guys. It was something they could not take from him.

_I have known him for over 30 years, I would have liked to have known him for 30 more. We were the quiet white-boy and the Indian from the Rez. Someday - someday we would have been the grumpy old Sheriff and his Indian friend from the Rez. Some things change, but not this. Whatever else might change, we are friends._ Henry knew, if he could say one thing to Walt it would be that. _No matter what, friends._ It would have been enough.

Walt was a good man who was very good at his job but he was not Superman, he could not be everywhere, know everything at once. There was very little chance Walt would find him - alive - Henry had made his peace with that.

His body, perhaps.

The men, possibly.

He knew Walt would try, he would move the Methodist Heaven above and Hell below for the people he loved. It did not make Henry feel better to know this.

Walt would do his best, but he was only human.

Henry did not wish to be another dead love Walt had to bury; another dead love Walt felt he had to avenge.

_It is what it is, oh how my words come back to bite me right on the ass,_ Henry thought to himself. _How many times have I said that to Walt over the years - him hating it more with each telling. I think he knew, some was just baiting to make the old bear growl. Yes, he knows me well enough for that._ Henry huffed quietly just thinking of Walt's face, the angry, bullheaded look of determination he got to prove Henry wrong whenever that subject was brought up in conversation. But it would seem Karma was a cunning bitch who beat them both in the end.

Walt might enjoy knowing that. Walt liked winning, whether it was an argument, or a fistfight. He could lose with grace, Henry had seen it done a time or two, if he had too. Karma had a leg up over both of them this round - nothing for it but to take it. In the end what would be would be.

Henry wriggled the restrains that tethered him to the RV just to hear them rattle. He kept at it even as red bloomed on his skin. At this point a few more marks did not matter terribly. He wondered how long his alone time would last. He could not hear Mitch or Trig puttering around in the front section of the RV, perhaps they were outside. Perhaps they had driven off never to return and some unfortunate camper would discover his rotting corpse, hands still tethered to the metal headboard. He was not sure why, but the idea of still being restrained even in death bothered him more than the death itself. It spoke of a tethered spirit forced to wander the mortal plane the Forked Path, haunting the shadows of the living.

_Okay, that got a little dark,_ Henry thought blowing out a breath. He could not believe that he was stuck between wishing them dead and gone, leaving him to a slow death by starvation and exposure or simply out for a short period of undetermined time before returning and fucking him some more.

This was his life, such as it was, for now.

He had no real desire to shake hands with Death but each time they fucked him, leaving him smelling like sex and stale sweat, come slick on his body he felt like he did die, just a little. And not the happy joie de vivre, little death, the French extolled. No, the shards of glass in the gut and bleeding out with an ambulance nowhere in sight kind.

Deep down he could feel the splintering of self, his spirit wandering, loosely tethered as though by a frayed rope as he struggled to remember...to remember what? Tomorrow was another day? Time was the great healer? It was cold comfort to Henry, he did not know if he would live long enough for the wounds to close and the bruises to fade back into his skin.

Left to the mercy of the suffocating silence inside the RV it was becoming harder and harder to pull himself back from the black moods, the hollowed out numbness that overtook him when they would leave. He shuddered, shoulders hunching inward and it was only with a great force of will that he derailed his mind from its grim musings. _Life, no one gets out alive,_ Henry thought, knowing Walt would not have found his gallows humor amusing. If the man were here, he would get his say, but he was not.

Henry consigned himself to waiting, as much as he hated them, and hated them he did - with a burning fury that kept him from sinking too far into the black. He was not ready to find out what came next when this life was over.

Henry was not ready for the_ Camp of the Dead_, but he supposed who was, in the end? There was no preparing for death, it was not afternoon tea, or the prep before rush hour at the bar.

If he laid perfectly flat and craned his neck he could just make out a partial view outside this place through the small window. This fracture view allowed him a small measure of escape. A fleeting reminder that even if it felt like all was lost, stuck staring at this ugly mustard yellow paneling, hope remained.

Life went on and people lived their lives. Someone out there was having a good day, it just was not him.

A fine misting of snow covered the ground and the trees were heavy with white snow covering their branches, they bent low beneath the added weight and if he listened beyond the rabbit-fast thump of his heart he could hear the ripple of wind over water. He bent his whole mind to listening to the softer sounds of the wild, allowing the melody of nature to drown out the rising complaints of his body and ease the ache that resided in his spirit. It was his solace. He turned his face toward the lingering sunlight and it felt nice.

A small decent thing...

Henry was ripped from his thoughts when he heard the crunch of boots on crushed snow and the harsh squeak of the RV door opening. They were back.

He stifled his rising panic by wondering who and what it would be today.

He had a 33% chance of guessing correctly. Three men, three possibilities, the man with the cam-recorder was squeamish but still happy enough to take the Benjamins and Franklins greasing his palms for his editorial filming talents. _Trig is in charge, he calls the shots on this operation and the Recorder does not get his hands dirty - he is in and out, taking his money with him. Mitch is impulsive. He lacks any self-restraint and possesses a libido that would make the Pope blush._ Henry ground his teeth together, jaw clenching as he breathed through the hot rush of shame burning in his gut. He wished that was not something he knew so intimately.

He clenched and unclenched his fist scraping open half-healed wounds encircling his wrists, police restraints were not gentle, their edges hard and unbending, and the men were often over enthusiastic and uncaring as they pulled him about like an intimate blow-up doll. It hurt to pull at them like this but he found the sharp sting, a small starburst of pain that chased back the chasm of numbness that threatened to envelop him completely, useful. The pain was grounding, at least, and failing that, it was something he could control.

It was little enough, but it was something. Henry could hear the metal rattle and when no one shouted for him to 'shut the fuck up' he did it again. Seeing if perhaps today something would give way. He drew himself up to his knees and put his full weight into pulling backwards, the skin around his wrist breaking open, red blood slipping down to his elbows and the blue sheets covering the mattress.

_Dammit, I have to sleep here!_ Henry sighed, but he did not stop. The dull edges of the restraints split through skin, wedging deeper into him the harder he tugged; he set aside the pain flaring up, starting at his wrist and zinging straight to his shoulders but he ignored it. _Pain is just an illusory sensation that the mind can shut down if it needs to,_ he told himself.

Henry knew he needed to at least try. Sweat broke out, collecting at his neck, chest, and forehead as the muscles in his back strained against the metal fixed to the wall. He did not think that even at his best he could pry the metal from the wall and he was decidedly not at his best, his eyes darted towards the heavens, seeking inspiration, but all he saw was the inky darkness of the RV. His muscles screamed in silent protest, throbbing under the unremitting pressure he placed on them.

_I cannot do it, I am not strong enough,_ Henry thought, his lips drawing back in a wordless snarl, tears of frustration gathering at the corner of his eye like rain on a dusty mesa.

It was no use, the metal would not give; the restraints held him just as surely as the hand that squeezed the back of his neck before bending him over the mattress. He was just as fucked now as he was going to be later when they decided to remember he was here.

Henry listed against the wall, his head bowed between his shoulders. He heard the heavy tread of boots and trembled, even as he hated himself for it, shaking like a kicked dog. They were ruining him, inch by inch, taking and taking and taking until there was nothing left inside. He smelled the snow, clean and bitter cold and all he thought was how much he wanted a shower, a freezing river to leap into, anything to wipe their stink from his skin.

He once loved watching the snowfall in winter how it muffled the usual bustle of the world to a tolerable stillness and near silence. He looked at it now, white and clean, and felt more deeply the stains that clung to him, on him, inside him. He longed to scrub until skin broke and peeled so a new layer could grow over it, new skin that they had not touched. Once he had loved a bit of rough with his bed-play.

Walt, throwing him onto the bed before following him down, eyes blue enough Henry could drown in them when they were pinned on him, dark with desire. Feeling the callouses on Walt's hands as they ran up the inside of his thighs. Blunt fingernails digging in at his waist; leaving pale bruises at the crease of his hips when they made love. It was proof of another thing they had taken, he was not sure he could ever bear another man's touch again and it hurt something inside Henry to recognize that fact.

Cracks were forming, fissures spider-walking through his spirit, he could feel it, doubts sliding in like a knife between the ribs. Not even his belief in Walter Longmire would hold these wolves at bay as they ripped and tore at the tapestry of his spirit. What more will they devour, what more is left? It was a question he did not want an answer for. Henry did not think he would like it.

Fingers grip his chin dragging his head up at an awkward angle. Henry felt his resolve crumble as he allowed the touch without complaint, the fight gone out of him leaving him hollowed out and empty. The ghost of Martha, lavender and zinnias, haunted his senses and he felt himself drift, curled up in a blanket of memory.

Trig smiled down at him and Henry shivered. He was a beautiful, fallen angel with the devil peering out from the back of his blue eyes. When Henry stared into his eyed all he saw was a predator - playing with its food before it went for the jugular. Mitch was the only one who could not see it.

Trig snorted, letting go of him. "Good. Thought you were dead for a second, nothing more useless than a dead whore." Trig laughed at his own joke.

"You're already on your knees, even better."

Henry averted his eyes. "No. I am not dead."

Henry could see that Trig had a new shiny, black Panasonic camcorder in his hand and his stomach lurched. The men's enterprise had begun to pay well enough for a more expensive upgrade. He was not sure if this should please or concern him, perhaps a little of both was the reasonable response. Mostly, he just felt very tired, the walls were closing in around him, and his mind kept playing tricks in the dark. If they did not kill him, he might well go insane. How else to explain the lucid dreaming, the blank spots in his memory when he would come back to...well, whatever it was he had tried to escape in the first place.

_Perhaps death would be kinder,_ Henry mused.

He could hear Trig unzipping his pants, the clank of his gold embossed belt buckle as it hit the floor and Henry clenched his hand to still its quaking. Henry kept his face turned away, hidden, in the shield he had made of his arm so he would not have to see. As if it mattered what he could or could not see. Still, it kept the tears back behind his eyes and it was a small choice he could make for himself.

The silence was deafening, but his ears were ringing with the chaotic static of white-noise and Trig had his hand on him, shoving him until his face was bowed into the mattress, his hips snug against the other man's dick. Trig's hands were sliding up the side of his bare flanks, cold and impersonal like a seller checking stock. He leaned forward, away from the man, and Trig grunted in annoyance.

"Stop that, you hear."

Trig groaned approvingly, grabbing at his ass and squeezing. "Not bad, old man. Mitch sure can pick grade-A ass, I'll give the boy that."

Henry exercised restraint and said nothing but his mind was whirring, weighing the pro's and con's of any choice for action he could make. Was there even anything that could be done? _Best not, last time Trig got his hands around my throat the room blacked out. I woke to Mitch. I remember, the fear, it had been bright in his hazel eyes,_ Henry thought to himself. Until that moment Henry had not known for sure if Mitch would care if he died and it was not the first time Henry wondered what might have happened if Mitch had not been so forceful in his demands.

If they had met under different terms. Well, Walt sure as hell had not been seeing him the past months. Perhaps, perhaps not, it did not matter, it was in the past now.

Henry grit his teeth as Trig continued to run his hands over his body, palming his ass, as his fingers, wet with saliva pressed inside him, doing a sloppy, cursory job of opening him up.

Spit was a poor substitute for lube but it was better than nothing.

He hated it, regardless, even if it made penetration hurt less. He hated how the man touched him like he owned him, his body, his fingers scissoring, the burning stretch of a clinical, expeditious prep. Trig just did not want to break him yet, Henry knew that. Beyond that the man did not care.

The restraints would not break, the metal frame would not break, but he might. Henry was still aching and burning from last night, and the night before that. Fuck, it hurt - he hurt in ways he had not experienced before. _Two weeks of this and each time it is like the first,_ Henry thought as Trig rubbed his length against his ass, slipping it between his thighs, and thrust, once, twice, moaning loudly.

Buying time for the camera, putting on a show for whoever was paying that wanted to see two young, athletic white boys screw an Indian. Henry wished he was numb to it by now, perhaps that might have made it easier, but he was not.

_Trig gets off on the struggle, thrives on pain, I can see it in the light that burns in his eyes, that dark gleam of satisfaction when...when I have no choice but to...cry out,_ Henry thought to himself as Trig rocked his hips forward, the friction of skin on skin making Henry's nerves spark, as the man at his back talked for the camera.

Henry did not need to be listening to know what he would be saying.

_'Whore,'_ he might say, as he worked himself into hardness.

_'Indian,'_ as though that was a brand of its own.

_'He wants it, bad'_ spoken into the camera as he touched Henry.

_'Smile for the camera,'_ as Trig worked himself inside, he was always cheap with the slick, barely enough to keep Henry from screaming. Or bleeding, for that matter. He felt a little bit more like dying every time one of these men lay with him, moving inside him hard enough that his head would bang against the wall or the muscles in his legs started throbbing from the strain.

No, he did not need to listen. Henry had heard it before.

He struggled to keep a wall between what went on here and anything to do with his nights with Longmire but they were beginning to bleed into one another, their marks seeping through to sully the canvas of much kinder memories. Walt had never been this rough - no one he had lain with had ever been this rough. He was not quite a young man anymore, it took longer than they allowed for him to recover.

But what could he do?

Police restraints were not known for being easily removed, it would defeat the purpose for which they were created.

Henry did not fight, trying to lessen the damage he tried to remain calm, his limbs pliant in surrender. It would be a waste of what reserves he had left to put on a pretense of a fight. He made a half-hearted attempt to split his mind from his body so what happened next would be tolerable. Bearable. It did not help much in the end when Trig pressed new bruises into the old ones bracketing Henry's waist; there would be a colorful overlapping patchwork of blue and lilac in the morning.

_Do not think of Walt...Do not think…_

Henry clutched at the bedding edge feeling the coarse texture of the blue sheets wrinkle, rubbing fractiously against his fingertips, every jostle sent ripples of pain through his body, tearing from him a low-pitched gasp, muffled by the cotton pillow half-suffocating his face. The taste of copper peppered his tongue as Henry tried to muzzle the sounds, tearing to escape, clawing their way up his throat as Trig worked himself inside, a dull aching throb, like sandpaper rubbing against skin.

Henry tried not to struggle but it still hurt badly enough that his vision swam, after that it was instinctive, pushing against the wall, against the man, which only served to push Trig further inside himself, and his mangled wrists throbbed terribly. Henry felt broken and burning, too hot and too cold all at once, and not any fistfight or sucker punch had ever hurt this much. Trig had a hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing, his nonverbal warning to_ 'keep it down'_ as he snapped his hips up hard.

Henry whined softly, but was otherwise silent. Head bowed between his shoulders, his skin tingling and sweaty as his pulse raced like a jack-rabbit, _thud, thud, thud,_ but he kept quiet. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin, just drift off into the soft darkness and not return but he did not. Henry was too afraid he might lose his way back to sever that last, worn thread. Walt, the surly bastard, might never forgive him. Fuck, he was doing it again - thinking of Walt when he should not be. _Stop,_ Henry thought to himself, striking the wall with his head, pain reverberated through his skull, he focused on that._ Just stop,_ he thought again as his hands aimlessly pulled at the restraints.

Trig stopped moving and Henry inhaled sharply, taking the chance to reorient himself and calm his panicked breathing, it would not do to pass out. He was afraid to with Trig pressed against this back, his hands far too close to the nape of his neck.

"Don't move, you hear?" Trig warned, his hand slapping against Henry's thigh.

"Mitch, get in here dude!" Trig shouted.

Henry could hear the clatter of plastic forks being dropped and the smell of pan fried hot-dogs and canned beans wafted into the back room. Mitch sauntered into the doorway where he slouched in an indolent sprawl with his arm propped on the mustard yellow panels.

"What?" Mitch asked.

There were small lines at the corner of his eyes, and his mouth was pulled in a taut line of displeasure.

Henry could hear the waver, the brittle strain in his voice. Mitch's possessive streak was rising to the surface again.

_Mitch does not like sharing. Either Trig does not notice, but it is more likely he does not care. He is the lion here, not Mitch. It is a pity, I might have been able to reason with Mitch...he enjoys the sex. Trig, he is...baiting his hunger,_ Henry thought to himself as he watched the two men square off from the corner of his eye while he himself was strung out like a lamb for slaughter.

It was deeply unsettling, being smothered under two-hundred-odd pounds of a man he did not trust, with another he did not like standing watch, buck-ass naked.

_Fuck, he better not say anything stupid._ Henry prayed.

Mitch sighed, visibly recalibrating his attitude to deference as he rubbed a hand over the stubble darkening his jaw. "I'm not into voyeurism, you freak. What you want, man?"

"Yeah, yeah," Trig muttered, a proprietary hand gripping Henry hard enough that his blunt fingers dig into his hip-bone. Henry could feel the burn of Mitch's hard stare flicking over Trig's hand but he said nothing.

He was not stupid after all then.

Trig shifted Henry's knees wider apart, pulling out and then sliding back inside in one long, slow push. "You screwed 'em this morning didn't you? Don't you lie either - I can tell, he's tight as a two dollar whore."

Mitch shrugged, his head canted to the side. "Heh, yes? He's fucking pretty."

"Dammit, Mitch!" Trig snarled. "Did you make a video? Fuck, we can get paid for that shit, or did you suddenly forget?"

Mitch had his hand out, palm up to pacify Trig. "I got carried away, you know? Sorry. I'll film the next session, okay? Deep Inside pays well for amateur videos - we're solid for the month."

Trig relented, rocking his hips a little, hitting the spot that made Henry bite his lip bloody, keeping his gasp of pleasure behind his teeth.

Trig groaned, his head tipping forward to rest against Henry's shoulder.

"Fu-ck, okay, you're right. Get the hell out, now."

It is good to be king, Henry thought as Mitch quickly backed out of the room. It was humiliating how they talked as though he were not even present, just the body they fucked, the Whore.

"Sh-it," Trig muttered, as he worked into Henry with quick, over-eager thrusts, spreading his thighs wider to allow the black camera a clear view of the pale dick moving roughly in his ass. Henry braced himself, his restrained hands tightening on the metal headboard to keep his face from being slammed into the wall.

Trig hissed out a guttural moan as he bottomed out.

"I didn't mean it, you know," he said, running a firm hand over Henry's ribs, which were more pronounced than they had been a week ago.

Who knew, kidnapping and rape lead to a diminished apatite. That, and neither of the men could cook worth shit. Never mind _Jenny Craig_, Henry had discovered the real secret.

Somehow, he did not think it would sell on the market.

"Always so fucking tight to start."

He was still talking. Henry grit his teeth wishing the man would just get on with it_ fuck him, finish, and get the fuck out_. He was tired of listening to him, to both of them. If this was the man's idea of pillow talk no wonder he could not get laid without the necessity of restrains.

But then, Trig did not want willingness, he wanted_ this_ \- rough, and hard, and too fast for anything to feel good.

Trig began moving inside him, grunting and groaning, and Henry took it in silence, face twisted with pain, but made no sound.

He focused on the diagonal scratch he etched into the wall instead, on the soft link of the restraints, and the gentle murmur of the river outside.

Henry turned his face away from the recording light - a bright red pinprick in the dark. He did not want to see it, the reminder that his humiliation did not amount to more than the price of a nice blue-collar house with a white picket fence. Blanketing the world in unseeing-dark was one thing but he could not block out the sounds. The jarring metallic _clank_ of cuffs rattling, ragged exhales and hot breath ghosting the back of his neck. Teeth sank into the side of his neck and Henry surrendered, his body becoming limp in compliance.

Drifting in the black, he could no longer feel anything - heard nothing but the ringing in his ears, as his mind was hollowed of conscious thought - beginning to shut down and turn out everything around him.

Henry imagined a cabin far, far away.

He followed the scent of lavender and zinnias, a brisk summer's eve, and worn leather from a newly cleaned gun-holster. Anywhere but here, trapped beneath the weight of a man that stank of sweat and Marlboro cigarettes as ownership of his body was trespassed. Somewhere there stood a cabin bracketed by rolling hills buried in white powdered snow, an orange fire gently flickering, it was warm and safe, and on the mantle there sat a pile of classical books, and in the bedroom an old clock.

It's soft, rhythmic _tick-tock's_ counted down the hours until sunrise.

_Absaroka Police Station_

_Two Weeks Ago:_

Walt startled from his doze at the loud clunk of a coffee mug landing hard on his desk. Shit! He'd been sleeping on the job. And it hadn't even been good sleep, what the hell was wrong with him lately? He kept getting pulled into chaotic, troubling dreams that left him with a bad feeling he couldn't shake. He could never hold on to much of it once he'd woken from the fog of sleep, just these flashing images, white snow turning black with cigarette ash, wolves tearing into sheep staked out in the woods, and a trapped bear.

Walt knows it doesn't mean shit but it bothered him that he kept dreaming of a bear with it's leg caught in a steel-trap, metal jaws grinding into fleshy paws. He had stood over it, looked it in the eyes, and that was always when he woke up feeling like he'd just kicked a whole litter of wriggling button nosed puppies and shot their mom. His job gave him enough shit when he was awake, he didn't need his mind tormenting him when he was asleep, too.

There was this nagging, pulling sensation that had him half-ready to stuff his Stetson on his head and stomp over to the Red Pony all hell for leather, but he couldn't figure what came next when he's shoved the swinging saloon doors open and he see's Henry standing behind the bar, alive and well, and looking far to handsome for Walt's liking as he wipes down the bar-top, playing up his role as_ imparter of great wisdom_ to fall down drunks. What then? Does he follow through striding forward until all that stood between them is a slab of wood as he looked the other man in the eye and...what.

This is where the dream fell apart. What is there that he can say with people at various stages of drunk looking on?

Not what needs to be said that's for damn sure._ 'I'm sorry, can we try that again'_ is what he thought might be appropriate but Walt didn't want witnesses or the barrier of the bar counter between him and Henry when he said that. He wanted the mad crush of lips, teeth, and tongue, hands pulling at his belt, as his own ripped open checkered flannel, buttons flying like those bodice ripper novels some women enjoyed. He wanted the heady, white rush of friction and tight heat and nothing between, ever again, but skin. Words sometimes failed him but _that_ would make for one hell of an apology.

Ruby frowned down at him, nudging the hot beverage closer. Walt yawned, stretching his hands wincing as various joints creaked ominously. He remained seated, clearing his throat as he looked at the woman pretending he hadn't just got lost in a swell of desire at the thought of what he wanted to do to Henry the next time he saw him, an inconvenient hard-on hidden under his mahogany desk.

"Looked like you were having some dream," she remarked, pulling out a chair on the other side of his desk and making herself right at home in the leather hard-backed chair most often occupied by criminals and suspects.

The_ 'do you want to talk about it'_ remained un-verbalized and Walt was grateful. He was not a child, he didn't need to talk about the monster under his bed or who he wanted in his bed, for that matter.

He suspected it would not shock Ruby terribly; she has always been a clever woman with an ear to the latest going ons. The best thing about her was she was a rare breed of gossip - she used her powers of gab for good. Walt is not sure he and Henry have been quite as clever as they have thought they were; having been doing this song and dance a long time it was possible she had cottoned on and never said. If she knew she had never let on and if she didn't, well, that was alright because Walt had no intention of airing his private affairs in public. What he chose to do off the clock in his own home was no one's business but his and the interested party he'd brought into his bed.

Walt took the coffee she kept nudging towards him, grateful to warm his hands against the hot ceramic. He studied the cup in his hand and smiled ruefully, wrapped around the side was the image of a black bear standing at a river bank. He squinted over at the older woman, frowning. There were a lot of mugs in the cabinet, well there were four, and this was the one she had selected?

He got the message, loud and clear.

"Are you suggesting I need a break?"

"You said it Walter, not me."

"Huh."

"Honey, you sure you don't need to talk about something?" Ruby asked, leaning forward. "You kept repeating something and Walt? You seemed...upset."

Walt took a long pull from his coffee and knew heading down to the Red Pony was completely out of the question. If Ruby could tell he was unsettled Henry would take one look at him and just _know_. That's what happened when you've known someone since you were twelve years old he supposed. They saw through the bullshit and all those little tells and shit you could hide from strangers who didn't know the real you from Adam.

Sometimes it was great, being known like that, and other times not so much.

No. He couldn't go too the Red Pony, too Henry like this. It was too confusing between them right now. His fault, this time, he knew that sure as he knew the scar on the back of his hand, and the thin raised while line above Henry's third rib.

Walt knew he needed some time to get his head on straight before he ought to go stepping a foot in his friend's bar. He'd started something he hadn't finished, he would though, he just needed a little more time to wrap his head around where this was all going first. Henry would understand and even if he didn't Walt knew he could talk him around when it came down to it - just not right now.

Walt was good at that when it came to Henry, bringing him around to his way of thinking. _Usually,_ Walt added on because he could be damn pessimistic when things started looking too good to be true.

He wanted a break from these strange dreams and sleepless nights, he wanted to march down to the Red Pony and...there were a lot of things he wanted presently, but he couldn't. Not hyped up on coffee and nerves, tangled in the net of a bad dream like something out of Dante. He'd make a fool of himself in front of every drunk cognizant enough to realize and he didn't need that kind of press.

"I'm fine Ruby, really," he said, mentally shaking off the remnants of emotion that his dreams had left him with. Just thinking of them, of that damned bear bleeding out alone on a snow capped mountain left him with a muted horror, cold hands wrapping around his heart and squeezing.

"Okay, okay," Ruby said, throwing up her hands, "you say your fine then your fine."

Walt paused, looking down at the bearing standing at the river bank and felt uncommonly cold. His heart jack-hammering in his chest. Wolves. He'd dreamed of wolves and they had devoured Henry whole. No, not Henry, the bear dammit, Walt thought to himself. It was not hard for him to make the connection. Walt had been thinking of Henry a lot lately, it was only natural for his dreams to cry havoc.

Walt groaned, rubbing the heel of his hand across his face. Henry was fine, he was working the evening shift today at the Red Pony. His hand reached for the landline phone gathering dust on the corner of his desk. He wanted to call him, to hear him answer with the line his bar had become known for in two counties.

_It is another beautiful day _

_and continual soiree _

_at the Red Pony. This is Henry _

_speaking. _

Walt curled his hand and let it drop, the phone untouched, dust motes undisturbed. And then what? He wasn't some kind of lovesick boy, a creeping _Edward Cullen_ ringing up his...best friend?...lover?...partner?...just to hear him speak.

_No, to stalkery,_ Walt thought even as his hand itched to do it and to hell with it. He curled his hand into a fist and shook his head tiredly. He needed to refocus on the case right now. Mandy Hall's would-be-kidnapper was still on the loose in his county. Bad dreams could wait. He had time to figure out what the hell that had been about when he wasn't on the clock.

Walter scrubbed at his face feeling ever single one of his years. This thing with Henry could wait, he had a job so it would have to. They'd had fall outs before, they would surely have more in the future.

They had plenty of time to work it out. Whatever it was. Later.


	5. Chapter 5

_Absaroka, Wyoming_

_Present: _

Time was a fickle mistress; one minute a man was led to believe he had it in rich supply and the next it was trickling down the hourglass. It was law enforcements' worst enemy in kidnapping cases because trails were liable to go cold and suspects would disappear like ghosts into the next city over across the state line but this was one fight Walt refused to lose. Time, odds, and anything else looking to get in his way could fuck right off to sunny down South. It wasn't just his duty to catch this son of a bitch it would be his genuine pleasure to look the man in the eyes before putting him six feet under. Although the law might take exception to that, wouldn't it? He couldn't keep wearing this badge if he killed a man in cold blood.

Walt put that notion on the back burner, first he had to find the suspect. He reckoned that the God he'd prayed to for Henry's safe return might take exception, too. He still remembers his Sunday school days with Pastor Thomas as a boy, it was spelled out clearly enough in the 6th Commandment that_ thou shall not kill_. Walt didn't suppose Pastor Thomas' God made exceptions for those men who reveled in bloodshed and rape but that was neither here not there, not until Henry was safe. After that he'd decide what needed to be done and what commandments needed breaking.

Walt had no personal stake in the Lord's teachings but down here in the muck, far from anything celestial, he couldn't in good conscience turn the other cheek._ Evil_ wasn't some ephemeral boogey-man hiding beneath the bed.

It walked among men, it inhabited them in the form of greed, lust, and apathy and if no one stood up it would keep on walking spreading its corruption like a venereal disease among the community, his community.

Evil was real enough, it was the idea that took hold sinking its teeth in deep, wearing down the human psyche whispering all the while,_ 'it's okay, you can steal from the bank the people won't lose their money they're insured,'_ hissing, _'it's okay, you can do that - what did she think going out in that skirt.'_ No, evil wasn't some abstract notion to Walt.

He saw it in the eyes of domestic abusers, murderers, and child-killers.

He remembered his church-going lessons in bygone days but it didn't change the fact that there were some men that needed killing. If the justice of this world was perfect his wife's murderer would have been caught, tried, and executed but that wasn't how it had happened. No matter how much Walt believed in the law he'd spent his life upholding he knew it to be imperfect at the best of times and something that could be rigged in the favor of bad men if their pockets were deep enough at the worst._ 'Thou shall not kill'_ Pastor Thomas had said, his expression grave and his clouded grey eyes filled with absolute conviction as though the world were black and white and not made up of the many shades of gray that it's average, law abiding citizens had to navigate.

Walt didn't think pipe-thin Pastor Thomas had ever held the cold, dead body of a 12 year old girl killed by her meth-head father. Or watched as her mother, hopped up on drugs, walked by her corpse as though she were nothing at all.

No, somehow he does not think Pastor Thomas had done any of that but Walt had and it left deep, gouging marks in the process.

There had been justice for that little blond haired, blue-eyed girl but there were plenty others that never darkened the grandiose Halls of Justice with their sad, broken bodies; forgotten or swept aside because they weren't newsworthy or American enough to warrant the hubbub of a media frenzy.

Walt knew the shortcomings of the law but it was his job to see that the right thing was done and if sometimes the right thing required knocking skulls together and sending another body to the morgue that was a price he could live with.

He'd be held accountable when his ticket came due and he would walk into that judgment with a righteous conscience knowing that he'd done the best he could in an imperfect world. That was the burden he took up every morning when he pinned the shiny tin-star to his chest, which served as a walking target and a tangible reminder to himself about his duty to the people of Absaroka. It wasn't just his job to keep them safe, it was his duty.

It cut him up inside whenever he failed, and he had failed this time no two ways about it. He felt a dangerous kind of anger rise up even thinking about some man putting hands on Henry against his will. It made him sick. So for now he held on to the faint thread of hope that he had this figured all wrong. A case of him shoving his feet into old boots that no longer fit right. Just this once, he'd like to be proven wrong.

Walt didn't think he was reading it wrong but he could hope.

As for Pastor Thomas, well, he was a long way from his bygone Sunday school days. He'd do what needed doing when the hour was at hand. All would be well with his soul in the end, Walt was sure at least of that much.

Filled with determination Walt ploughed forward, never looking back. Having a face to pin to the crime sure would help him narrow the field of search. Knowing where the suspect went to high school even more so and that damn grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High_ sweater that tied together the two, no three, cases indicated a probable age range of early twenties to thirty. While he ran down leads around town Ruby was getting in contact with the Montana school's principal; Mr. Conwell had been running the high school for the last nine years which meant there was a fair chance he knew something useful. Walt felt he and his deputies were taking pot-shots at shadows in the dark right now waiting to see if any landed on target.

Unwilling to remain stationary Walt lit out of the station like a bloodhound hot on a trail. Stuck in his head was the last place he should be and he knew it like a bear knew the scent of a fresh kill. He had to keep moving to stay afloat of the thoughts nagging at him. Sharks were the same, if they stopped swimming they lost their ability to breathe.

Walt felt a bit like them at the moment, he was okay so long as he kept moving.

Ruby was taking the lead on questioning Mr. Conwell and he was double glad for that fact. How did a person ask a principle which of his students he thought was capable of kidnapping and sexual assault? Walt shook his head, he just didn't know, there was too damn much he didn't know some days. It was unlikely the suspect was up there in years if he still fit into his old high school clothes.

Walt might still have his old high school jersey, somewhere at the bottom of a dusted over drawer that never saw sunlight, but he sure as hell didn't peacock around town in it. It wasn't becoming of a sheriff to ruminate over old childhood victories for one thing, it didn't fit proper for another. Henry may have been right about him needing to exercise more, chasing criminals just wasn't the workout it used to be in Sheriff Lucien's day.

Mostly they were slow and stupid which had made his job a whole lot easier for spell. Might have also landed him with some excess baggage he really should do something about. He wasn't above admitting that if he was going to be sweating up bedsheets with Henry Standing Bear in the future he wanted to do it a few pounds lighter. Walt realized he was taking a lot on faith but he felt certain he could put things right between them - things weren't so wrong that that bridge had been washed out. It just needed some fine tuning, same as his diet apparently.

It was just his shitty luck that criminals had to go and grow bigger brains for the kidnapping of his best friend.

Personally, he preferred when they had been slow and stupid even if it had lead to an extra hole gouged in his belt. He'd lay good odds the suspect was a young man in his late twenties with a face that women liked looking at. It was not often in Walt's line of work that the bad guys actually wore black hats like these did in cinematic movies or old westerns, oftentimes they looked like nice, normal, upstanding citizens, right until the moment they stuck a knife in another man's back when he wasn't looking.

Kidnappings in general tended to revolve around four keystone's ransom's, personal vendettas, human trafficking, or rape.

Ms. Hall being such a lovely woman, there wasn't much doubt left in Walt's mind that her would-be kidnapper wanted something more from her than her phone number but human trafficking was more of a Big City problem. People in small towns with lower population counts tended to take notice, and grievous offence, when their own people started being picked off. No, there hasn't been any of those dealing around here lately, Walt thought as he circled back to personal vendetta and rape. Now he was well aware that rape wasn't something that just happened to women but the statistics leaned heavily towards victims being female on that particular brand of violence. That, and either the victim was released after the assault was completed or they were killed their bodies dumped somewhere off the map. But he was short a body so working from that assumption Walt had to presume his friend was still alive out there somewhere, Walt just had to find him.

He had to believe that or he'd be a lot less okay than he already was. Until he had proof he was working under the presumption of life, it was the only way he could do his job.

It bugged the hell out of him that he still couldn't figure out why Henry had been taken specifically. Walt had a few notions. of course, but he didn't like any of them too much.

Henry was the complete antithesis of Ms. Hall who had been the first victim to come forward.

Ms. Hall was all California Girl blond right down to her pink manicured fingernails and her Western twang. Henry was distinctly Cheyenne, dark skinned, dark eyed, older than Ms. Hall right down to the faint scatter of grey at his temples which wasn't all that noticeable unless a person had reason to be leaning into his personal breathing space, and of course he was a man.

Walt was too tangled up in his own feelings to be completely subjective but he figured Henry was still a handsome guy to some, if not many people of both persuasions, a testament supported by the fact that not all the eyes that tracked Henry when he was working the bar were female. Being Cheyenne made Henry seem like a low risk target to criminals on account of his non-white ethnicity but the suspect took a bigger risk attacking a 167 pound man than a petite woman who couldn't be more than 60 pounds soaking wet, which begged the question why the change in victimology? Walt sighed. It was possible Ms. Hall was just in the wrong place at the exact wrong time.

Maybe she wasn't the suspect's preferred type at all.

Which meant that Henry was the right type. Possibly. Assuming this crime had a sexual component, and he wasn't sure about that one yet, he didn't want to be sure about that angle just yet - but it was possible. Which also meant that Walt's suspect was either gay or bisexual, and most likely harbored some kind of fetish for people with a non-white ethnic heritage. Walt had seen the kind before. _Possibly, maybe, dammit, I don't like all this guessing, I need facts!_ Walt thought to himself. If he'd known about the sweater that connected events maybe it would have changed things sooner. _Dammit!_ _It doesn't matter. What was done, was done._ He'd just have to make the difference up by not fumbling the ball at the half-mark. Having gone from zero suspects to more than he could handle with two corroborating witness testimonies gave Walt a place to start. He could make this work.

He had done more with less in the past. He had caught the son of a bitch's scent now.

Hunting fever was racing in his blood but his head was cool. This suspect was as good as caught, the rest was details. It was only a matter of time. Walt strode over to the Miltons' General Store which had been in the Milton family for over three generations. Walt knew that when Johnathon Milton had taken over the running of the business he had installed quality security to keep any down-on-their-luck types from thinking to make easy cash on his dime. He bet if the security camera was a bust that Mary saw something even if she didn't know the particulars. She had a crush on Henry the size of Texas that she'd been nursing since high school.

Walt had never figured out if Henry was oblivious to her feelings or just being kind when she fumbled her way through awkward conversation and tame come-ons at the Red Pony. Walt suspects she'd have had better luck if she'd dispensed with the tameness and just gone for what she wanted outright. Might have gotten her a night of fun to remember later if she played her cards right. He happened to know for a fact that Henry had a weakness for strong women. _And my hat,_ Walt mused with a note of nostalgia softening the sting of the past memories rising to the surface. They'd had themselves some nights, him and Henry. The kind that would have made _Casanova_ blush.

Walt pushed the door to Milton's store in with enough force that the bell jangled, sharp and bright. "Mary, Johnathon, I need to have a word."

"It's important," he said, meeting their eyes directly and with a sweeping gesture motioned toward the back office where they could have a private word.

"Of course, sheriff. What can we do for you today?" Johnathan asked, a furrow digging between his brows.

"I need to ask to see your footage, any cameras with a view of the Red Pony to be exact. It would have been three weeks ago," Walt said, holding up a hand to forestall any legal hum-drum Johnathon was going to enact.

Walt held out the photo of his suspect to Mary. "I'm trying to locate Henry Standing Bear and I need your help. Have you seen this man in the store or around town?"

Mary's face when corpse white, her hand clamped over her mouth in shock. "Dad, you'll give Sheriff Walt Longmire what he needs won't you? The man seems familiar, but I can hardly be sure - we get a lot of customers you know, and it's been a while. I just can't be sure," Mary admitted and there was a film of tears in her brown eyes.

Walt gave her a moment to gather herself while her father shifted closer, awkwardly patting her shoulder in consolation.

Jonathan was clearly uncomfortable with her show of feminine emotions as he quickly busied himself with taking the photo from her shaking hands and squinted down at it through his steel-gray, bi-focal wire-frame glasses.

"He's a good man, Henry." Jonathan finally said, "I'll help in any way I can, of course, it's only right. My daughter is correct however, we have had a lot of people walk through those doors. I pride myself on knowing my regulars but, well, I can't say that I know every face as well as I should," Jonathan admitted with a tired sigh.

"Whatever you do, don't get old Walt. It's a plain nuisance," Johnathan said startling a laugh from Walt who found himself smiling in spite of the black mood dogging his steps.

"Well now, I think that ship has left port," Walt said.

Johnathan snorted and ushered Walt into his office which was a small room with pale turquoise walls, an authentic cedar wood computer desk, a tan filing cabinet and a landline phone hooked to the wall. There was hardly room enough for two men to strand comfortably but Walt wasn't going to order Mary around in her own store.

Johnathan waved him over. "Well, come on then, sheriff. Let's have a look at what I've been paying for."

"This would have been back to three weeks ago," Walt said as Jonathon typed away on the keyboard.

"There, that's him - that's the suspect," Walt said watching as the man he was tracking loitered outside the Red Pony, throwing his bud-lite bottle on the ground when he'd finished.

Walt ground his teeth. He hated litterers.

Three minutes later Henry exited the bar with his back to the street as he lugged a garbage bin out the door.

"Shit," Walt said.

Henry had left himself wide open for ambush with his back to the street. Walt's suspect took one look at Henry's vulnerable back and like the coward he was struck out by grabbing him in a choke hold.

Henry put up a damn good fight but the other man was bigger, meaner. The two bodies on the screen hit pavement hard, Henry pinned under his assailant who knocked him out cold with a single blow to the temple.

"Hell of a thing to happen, right outside his own door...right outside my store too," Johnathan muttered. "Hell of a thing."

Johnathan squinted, leaning forward into the screen.

"Johnathan?" Walt asked, going completely motionless with anticipation. The older man clicked his tongue shaking his head.

"Well, I'll be damned. I do know that face, I'm sorry to say. He's been through here a few times…" Johnathan paused and Walt did not miss the surreptitious glance towards Mary who was still standing quiet as a mouse and pale in the doorway.

"Sugar, I heard the front door, won't you check for me?" he asked.

Mary nodded, composing herself with a sunny-smile for her waiting customers and made her way to the store entrance her stride confident and pleasant. If she knew her father wanted to speak with Walt privately she didn't let it show. Walt might never have known she'd been crying if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

With a swish of her skirt she disappeared from view leaving the two men alone.

"He always bought condoms, canned goods and foods that could be microwaved or cooked on a grill. That and Marlboro cigarettes," Johnathon explained, having abandoned the security footage to pull up a record of sales. "That struck me as strange - the boy didn't stink like ash and smoke the way a-pack-a-day users do."

"He was buying them for someone else, someone that's staying with him maybe," Walt muttered more to himself than Johnathan as a clearer picture began to crystallize.

Walt paced, treading over the same brown strip of carpet with his fist under his chin as he thought. His suspect bought cigarettes from Milton's but he didn't smoke, canned food, and condoms. He was highly impulsive, the attack on Mandy Hall proved that much but it remained unclear if the suspect had been waiting to confront Henry after hours or if he merely made use of the opportunity fortune provided.

Walt's suspect number had just doubled, he wasn't looking for one son of a bitch. He was looking for two men and possibly a woman. What were the chances that one of the men had gotten a girlfriend involved? He knew he was grasping at straws throwing an unknown female into the mix but if the condoms weren't for a girlfriend then there was a high probability that this was going to be a kidnapping_ and_ sexual assault crime.

Walt rubbed the bridge of his nose, there was a pink elephant in the room he didn't want to consider before but he had little choice now. He slammed his hand against the wall. Johnathan startled, backpedaling a few steps. Walt blew out a harsh breath. _Shit, there's no wiggling around the facts now - two male kidnappers, long term captivity, condoms, and Henry? I can't imagine how this isn't going to turn out to be a rape crime. I wish...I wish I could. Wouldn't it be something if there is a girlfriend involved - I don't think either of us have ever had that kind of luck,_ Walt thought to himself dread pooling in his gut.

The only good thing about this turn was he had a better idea of why Henry might still be alive. Barring one of the suspects being a necrophiliac he still had a shot at finding Henry alive but time was running out. Walt could feel the hourglass in his head bleeding sand with each second. _Tick-tock_ and another moment wasted as Henry teetered between living and dying.

"Here, I made some coffee," Mary said, startling Walt from his thoughts. He hadn't even noticed her quietly slipping back into the room with two mugs held out in her hands.

"Oh, uh, thanks," Walt said and downed his fifth cup of coffee of the day. By now he had more caffeine in his veins than blood.

Walt stopped pacing when Johnathan huffed out a small breath. "There you are!" Johnathan exclaimed his narrowed gaze startling in its intensity, "I have a name for you, sheriff."

Walt's lip curled in a feral smile, white teeth glinting in a wild bearing of fangs. If he kept pulling at threads eventually he'd find the right one, the one that would lead him straight to Henry Standing Bear.

Walt stared down at the suspects name and when he spoke his words were a rumbled growl. "Mitch Holden."

"Go get your man, Walt" Johnathan said.

Walt almost dropped the mug he was holding and decided he had definitely had too much caffeine and not enough food. Johnathan was talking about Holden, of course, but addled by caffeine and the rushing anger churning up his blood that wasn't how Walt had heard it. Wasn't how Walt wanted it, either.

"Right, thanks" Walt said, numbly handing off his empty mug and strode out of Milton's General Store with less force than he's slammed in with. Stepping out onto the pavement Walt looked up at the sun shining down and cutting holes through the grey thunderclouds threatening rain. Walt tipped back his Stetson letting the faint warmth hit his face. It was a good day for a hunt.

Walt caught sight of his deputy. Ferg was jogging toward him, red faced and eager. "Ruby, Ruby found something," he gasped out, hands on his knees as he stopped, dragging in a lungful of air. High tension levels and anxiety could increase breathing rates and, often, lead to hyperventilation when a person exhaled more than they inhaled, swallowing an excess of air.

Ferg was going to give himself aerophagia if he kept that up.

"Talking with Mr. Conwell was a bust. Ruby spoke to her book club, just in case? And showed the photo around because they meet up at the Half-Moon Café, see a lot of people come and go, you know?" Ferg said talking so fast his words ran together.

Walt didn't speak but the steely look he had fixed on Ferg encouraged him to come to his point. "Anyhow, her gal-pal Sue spoke to a man that looked like our suspect. His name is Mitch Holden, that's the good news. The bad news is that he doesn't have a fixed address."

Ferg gulped another lungful of cold air wiping the sweat beaded on his forehead. "Ruby, however, is an angel. She talked to someone who had talked to someone else...you know how it is in small towns? Point is, Holland Fayne saw him check into Motel 6, some weeks back."

"Okay, Ferg, tell Ruby that was some good detective work. Maybe I should give her that badge," Walt said flicking the copper tin star and Ferg went red right up to his ears.

"Keep asking around, Ferg. Talk to the DMV and see if we can't get a lock on a vehicle for Holden. Put out a BOLO on this son of a bitch, too."

"Got it," Ferg said, pulling out his phone and walking away, "I'll let you know when I get something."

"Hey! Watch where you're goin', deputy."

Ferg put a hand over the speaker and looked up. "Oh, sorry, man. I didn't see you," Ferg said to the man he'd almost shoulder-checked in his rush to get moving. "I'll buy you a drink down at the Red Pony next time I see you, again, sorry, man."

"I'll take that deal," the man said laughing. "No harm done, deputy. You have a good day now," the man said, tipping his ball-cap and crushing the butt of his cigarette under his boot heel.

Ferg nodded absently, "thanks, you too, man."

Walt observed the exchange for a moment. He didn't recognize the man, but then, he did not actually know every soul in his county. It would probably make his job easier if he did. The gears turning in Walt's head turn back to the case and he's left wondering if he ought to know why Fayne remembered Mitch Holden. Running into a stranger at a motel three weeks ago? At least he knew where to find Holland, he worked the 8-5 shift at Beards & Shears.

Walt ran his hand over the stubbly bristles shadowing his jaw and decided he needed a shave.

Good thing he knew a place and maybe he and Holland could have a little chat, too. Before leaving he snagged the cigarette off the floor and threw it into the green barrel shaped garbage can. He never could see why people felt the need to just throw things on the floor, it didn't take much effort to put things where they belonged and cigarettes belonged in the trash.

"Well, look who the cat dragged in, Sheriff Longmire," Holland said steering Walt to a free seat as though they weren't all empty. It was lunch hour so they had the place to themselves for the moment. "A little birdy told me you would be visiting."

"A red, ruby-shaped birdy, I assume." Walt studied the other man and decided he looked better now than the last time he'd seen him, drunk off his ass making a public nuisance of himself.

"You're looking well."

"I feel well," Holland readily agreed. "Sobriety suits me, and is better for my liver. Or so my doctor tells me. I have you and Henry to thank for that. I have not forgotten."

Holland closed the door behind Walt and flipped the sign to 'closed' before pulling out a chair and seating himself across from Walt. "Ask your questions."

Walt didn't let his surprise at Holland's boldness show on his face. "Holland, can you tell me why you remember Mitch Holden and his short lived residence at Motel 6?" Walt asked watching as the man across from him closed his eyes in resignation.

Holland tied his raven-black hair back in a pony-tail with a leather tie. A nervous tic he'd learned from his father. Holland could thank his mother, Sarah Little Deer, for his swarthy good looks. He had her dark, deep-set eyes. Walt could see them lose some of their bright animation with the mention of Holden.

"You're not in any trouble that I can see, but I'm working a case and you might have the answers I need. That's all," Walt said hoping to set the other man at ease.

Holland drew in a sharp breath. "We were having sex, that is how I knew him, that is how I knew where he was staying."

"Same-sex, uh, affairs have been legal in Wyoming since February 1977," Walt said to break the silence after Hollands confession. "But I'm sure you know that already."

"Do you know where I can find Mitch now, Holland?" Walt asked, leaning forward to bridge the distance between them. "He's got himself into something and the only way this ends peacefully is if I can bring him in."

"You think I would protect him? No, you have this all wrong Walt," Holland growled surging out of his seat, temper flaring hotly in denial.

"Okay, okay, tell me how it is. You said you owed Henry, well it's time to make good on that debt and help me find Mitch," Walt said swivelling his chair to face the other man who stood in the middle of the shop with his arms fisted at his hips, nostrils flaring and breath puffing like an angry bull.

"Henry? What does Henry...Oh," Holland said and suddenly all the anger drained right out of him leaving his dark skin pallid and washed-out under the shop's halogen lights.

"Oh fuck," Holland muttered covering his face with his hand as he collapsed into a chair like a marionette with its strings rudly cut.

"Whatever you're thinking? You need to tell me now, Holland," Walt said, snapping his fingers in Holland's face when he remained unresponsive.

"Hey! Talk to me, okay?" Walt said crouching in front of Holland who had rested his head in his hands. "I don't have time for this, you need to get it together."

"I cannot help you and I am sorry, Walt. I broke it off with Mitch five weeks ago, he became obsessed with...he became intense in a way I no longer enjoyed," Holland folded his arms across his chest and leaned away from Walt adopting a clearly defensive posture.

"No, see you're wrong, there's things you know, things you might know, important things that could help me get to the bottom of this," Walt explained. He backed up two paced to give Holland more space letting him relax without Walt's looming.

"Holden was staying at Motel 6 but what room, do you remember?" Walt asked and paused before asking his next question, which allowed Holland time to think. "And when you two, um, hooked-up, did he ever mention other people? Friends?"

"It was room sixteen. The doorknob was a constant annoyance - it had to be jiggled and shoved hard to open. We discovered early quiet entrances were not possible," Holland said with a sad, wistful smile that quickly faded. "Friends? I cannot say for sure, talking was not our strong suit. Mitch got a ride back with someone named Hank, no, Hector, a time or two because his truck kept breaking down and money was tight."

"Okay, that's good. You said before that Holden became obsessed, what was he obsessing over?" Walt asked, pausing when Holland's eyes flicked away, down. Deflecting.

"Or should I ask, who? Oh," Walt said and felt like cursing a shit ton of fuck's himself at this revelation.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._ This right here had been what he'd been afraid of, and here was confirmation staring him in the face. Holden had a thing for Indian men. Walt did not like the direction this case was taking but he had to see it through for his friends sake. Why hadn't Holland said anything? If not him the sheriff, then to Henry. A suspect with Indian fetishization who had kidnapped the object of his desire? _The son of a bitch is probably alone with Henry right now...the suspects have been alone with Henry for three weeks and there's no changing that now._

Walt ground his teeth hard enough that his gums ached as he shoved his personal feelings aside, digging deeper into his analysis. Henry was older than Holland but factoring in the psychological cross-race effect which made it difficult for people to accurately ID those of another racial group an emotional transference could have happened. A sudden break-up would increase the likelihood of Holden acting on his fixation. Fuck. Walt felt his gorge rise, sickness curdling his belly.

Suddenly a suspect buying condoms at the Miltons' General Store didn't seem so innocent. As if it had ever been.

"It was Henry. Mitch fixated on Henry." Walt snarled, grabbing Holland by the jacket and yanking him to his feet. Walt held him in place by the collar of his shirt, giving him a rough shake as though Holland were a disobedient pup.

"And you didn't think to mention? Why? You were embarrassed, afraid, what? Tell me, make me understand how you couldn't say a Goddamn thing!"

Walt snarled wordlessly and shoved the younger man away in disgust. "If anything happens to Henry..."

Walt didn't finish his sentence and he didn't need to.

Holland slumped against the wall the picture of abject misery. "Is this why Henry has not been at the Red Pony? Shit! Walt, be reasonable. How could I know Mitch would - would actually do something?" Holland asked, his eyes, so dark and troubled with emotion begging Walt to understand.

"I don't suppose you could," Walt conceded, his face still set in an ill-tempered scowl. "I know that, that the, uh, kind of relationship you were involved in with Holden might have had something to do with your not wanting to say anything to anybody. I understand Holland, I do. But I still would've thought you knew I wasn't that kind of bastard."

Holland sighed, "I know that, sheriff. But there are some things that are not so easy to share. Still, you are Henry Standing Bear's oldest and best friend, I should have trusted you."

"Yeah, you should've," Walt said and brushed past Holland. He didn't have it in him to be any kinder than that. Holland had let fear rule him and it might cost Henry his life, if not that it was still going to cost.

Henry had been gone for three weeks. Assuming he was still alive there was no way the man was going to walk out of this without some serious scarring.

Walt paused at the door, looking back at the young man watching him walk away with sad dark eyes. For a split second a vision struck Walt and Holland's image was overlaid with Henry's.

Walt's heart softened and the heat of his anger sputtered down to smoldering embers.

"I will find him, and that's a promise," Walt said and without another word left the establishment without ever looking back but he could feel Holland's eyes on him the whole time.

He got into the Bronco quietly shutting the door. He had a name, a face, and a motive, three more pieces than he'd had when he'd rolled into town four hours ago.

The picture forming in his head was almost complete and it was ugly but he refused to overlook a single detail in his head-long rush into finding Henry. All of this was on him. His fault. He'd stuck his head in the sand and called it duty. Afraid to confront this thing sparking up again between him and Henry at the Red Pony late one night. It had been the easiest thing in the world, letting late-night wanting spill over into action. Walt could blame too much alcohol and not enough restraint but that was a flat out lie. He had just_ wanted_, consequences be damned.

When the hot fervor of passion dissipated and he was staring up at the ceiling with a warm, strong body pressed against his side he started thinking and worrying as reality set in. He and Henry had had sex and it had been a hell of a good time but it was more than that, too. It was always_ more_ with Henry. That was that part that had Walt turning circles in his head. The last time they'd touched like this there had been three people in the bed and now there were two men and the ghost of what once was hanging over his head like the_ Sword of Damocles_.

He hadn't been ready. Walt only realized what he should have done later, _'I'm sorry, this happened too fast'_ that's it. Henry wouldn't have pushed for more than he could give, Walt knew that. It wasn't in his nature. That would have done the job. Instead he chose the path of least resistance pretending it never happened. It was not the worst decision of his life, but it was up there in the Top 10.

Walt didn't know what Henry thought because he never asked, quietly let himself out of the room while the other man slept. It had been an underhanded thing to do. Slipping down the stairs quiet as a mouse, skipping the fourth step that always creaked. Sneaking out the back door as if they'd done something wrong, something dirty. That hadn't been it at all but Walt figured that was how Henry took it. He knew it was how he might have seen it had the shoe been on the other foot. Leaving things like that between them afraid the night they'd shared? It was one of the stupider decisions he'd made.

Some _Sherlock_ he'd proven. The spirit world had been talking to him. Whispering_ 'danger!'_ and the whole while he'd deafened his ears and why? Because he was a coward, afraid of letting himself feel, afraid if he opened that door he'd fall right back into old habits and his best friend's bed.

It was the easiest thing and the hardest, wanting Henry. He was most himself when it was Walt and Henry - being _Walt and Henry and Martha_ had come easy as breathing but he'd been down that road and it had cost him so he'd closed his eyes, but he couldn't close them now. He was haunted by dream visions that wouldn't let him sleep that leave him feeling cold and numb inside. He'd wake up alone in his bed feeling hollowed out, like someone had taken a peeler to an apple and cored out the middle, except it was not an apple, it was his insides that had been gutted.

Everything inside his head was laid bare on the outside, everything he should have done exposed to open air. He carried bitter regret, cradling it to his chest even as it gnawed at his heart. They were his burden to carry now.

He should have asked God for more. Walt concedes maybe it wasn't his place to ask for anything at all seeing as he's not a devout Sunday church attendee these days. He's not sure what the protocol would be in these matters, or for a person of his diverse beliefs. People prayed all the time, to all kinds of Higher Powers, for all kinds of reasons. Walt didn't imagine there was anything inherently wrong with praying for Henry now. He'd like to believe that those unknowable Higher Powers of the world would, in their infinite wisdom, understand his very human situation.

Henry. His...best friend?...lover?...partner?...The only man he'd ever loved like_ this_, was gone and the hard fact was he'd kneel at any altar, sacrifice to any God if it shifted the wind in his favor just this once. Henry disappearing from his life was not acceptable - there were a lot of things Walt knew that he couldn't change but he refused to allow this to be counted among them. Henry dying before him was not something Walt was prepared to deal with. It was not okay, nothing would ever be okay in his world if that happened.

He was the sheriff, dammit. If anyone was going to journey into that black night and the eternal mystery of the final rest it was him. All he'd asked of God was that Henry be alive. He wanted Henry to be so much more than that.

Henry deserved so much more than that, too.

But alive would be good enough. It was a place to start. God willing, Walt was prepared to spend the rest of his life making this right.

_Don't be dead, that's all I ask. Please, Henry, I…._ Walt thought, wishing that he could reach out across the distance and speak to his friend - tell him everything he'd been too afraid to say that night as Henry slept beside him. He knew what he really wanted to say, the soft words he held back, behind his teeth and wrapped around his heart in sparking silver cords that would never unravel. Yes.

Walt knew what he should have said now that there's no one but the ghosts in his head to listen.


	6. Chapter 6

_Present:_

His belly satisfied with the over-cooked burger he'd grabbed from _Half-Moon Cafe_ Walt pulled into the Motel 6 parking lot. Entering Henry's bar for food wasn't worth poking the rattler curled up inside him, just waiting to sink venom in his veins. He couldn't deal with that shit right now, not with leads to follow. If he fell down that rabbit hole he'd be useless to anyone. He'd take that over-cooked steak and salty fries, thanks. He was a damn sight relieved that there was only one _Motel 6 _in Absaroka, too. He hadn't even thought to ask before leaving Holland alone with his guilt for company. It was mean-spirited of him but he hoped it kept Holland up at night.

Ferg must have called ahead, smoothing the way. The manager was waiting for Walt at the door. He was a tall and lanky man in his late forties, salt and pepper hair thinning into a widows peak. Walt didn't know his name but he'd seen the man hitting on waitresses at the _Red Pony_ once or twice. He'd mentally dubbed him _Lucky Joe_ because he always struck out, the name had stuck when he let Henry in on the joke. He had a suspicious look about him but that could be due to the cannabis Walt could smell on his breath. Nothing like a sheriff rolling up to make a man with a habit start fidgeting.

Walt approached in a lazy stroll, examining the lot and the transients peeking from behind cheap polyester window curtains. "Relax, sir," Walt said stopping at a respectable distance but close enough that he could keep an eye on his twitchy hands. "I'm only here following a suspect. You might remember him, Mitch Holden. Handsome fella, by all accounts -"

The tall man snorted and spat on the pavement, looking down his thin, narrow nose with those three inches of height he had on Walt. "How would I know, sheriff? I'm no queer."

"Okay, so you do remember him then. Did he have any friends, male or female, that would hang around, loiter in the parking lot?" Walt asked completely ignoring the man's blatant attempt at intimidation. Walt had been looked down at by much bigger and far meaner customers in his time. A tall, skinny motel manager he could break over his knee like a rotted twig wasn't going to make him sweat.

"Only one I ever saw around was that Indian he was fooling with," the manager said his lip curling sourly, making his already unpleasant features more unfortunate. "Would have never known he was that sort to look at him. Either of them, really."

"Just to be clear, you mean Holland Fayne right?" Walt asked, watching as the managers head bobbed in agreement. "He looks a fair bit like the Indian who owns that bar, what's it called..._The Pony_? Good food there."

"Uh-huh, the _Red Pony_," Walt automatically corrected. He didn't bother pointing out that Holland and Henry didn't look all that similar, other than dark skin and even darker eyes, black as the sky on a starless night.

Walt knew a lost cause when he saw it. "Okay, I'll need to have a look at your security footage from November, and when Holden was in residence."

The tall man rocked back on his heels, scratching his ear reluctantly. "I can get a warrant, if that's how you want to play this. But I don't think it is, is it?" Walt asked leveling the man with a hard stare.

"It's not that, sheriff. See, the security cameras have been busted for a while. I was going to fix it, really, just never got around to it. People don't stay at _Motel 6's_ 'ause they want to be, um, recorded, watched, you know?" the manager shuffled on his feet, chewing on his bottom lip.

"Who paid you to not fix the cameras?" Walt asked, reclaiming the space he had given the man until they were standing uncomfortably close. Walt could smell it when the managers deodorant wiped, leaving him stinking of fear.

"I don't know, honest! Hell, it's not like he walked up and introduced himself or anything. I was going to do it anyway after a few weeks but...there was just something about the man, like he was on a hair trigger or something? I had intended to fix 'em anyhow. But…" the manager shrugged, "guess I really should have."

Walt didn't say anything about intentions and the road to hell, just curled his lip in disgust. Here was another roadblock in his missing person case and there was no way of knowing if it was related to his or was some other bastard trying to sneak one by the local law enforcement.

"That wasn't for you to decide, Tom" Walt said, his eyes flicking to the name badge pinned to his wrinkled, white button down shirt. "Get it fixed," Walt said, brushing past the man to speak with the teenager who'd been casting furtive looks at him from the attendance desk in the lobby, her blue eyes widening a fraction when they lightened on the shiny, gold star pinned to his chest.

He read the plaque displayed in front of the counter and snorted_. 'We'll leave the light on for you' _it read in plain Times New Roman font. "_Or turn it off, maybe,"_ he thought uncharitably but that wasn't fair, one manager's crooked side-dealings shouldn't impact a whole franchise. He introduced himself, needless though it was, and openly studied the teenager.

He doubted Amanda Belle was more than nineteen, she had her blond hair pulled back in a respectable bun and a crisp blue button down tucked into a pencil skirt, but the scattered streaks of blue highlighting it spoke of a little wildness. She also had a few novels tucked off to the side, pages dogeared and worn from use. _The Girl On The Train_ and _The Heart of Hyacinth. _A smart girl then, with diverse taste.

Her first words startled Walt, a little, but he didn't let it show. Just waited to see where she was going with that kind of opening statement. "I'm not homoaphobic, unlike _some_ people around here," she said slanting a quiet, but pointed look at Tom loitering in the doorway.

"But I noticed Mitch and his friend. It wasn't anything special at first, just two handsome guys passing through. They were nice. Mitch seemed nice. Gave a girl some eye-candy to look at from time to time." She grinned at Walt through her lashes, trying to look wicked no doubt.

She just looked very young and innocent.

"Seemed." Walt said, arching an eyebrow. "So you don't think he's nice anymore, then?" Walt asked leaning against the counter visibly blocking out Tom who was loitering and shooting narrowed eyes glares at the girl. He wasn't looking to get her fired but the manager was useless and edging on construction of justice.

She shrugged, looking away in embarrassment at having so quickly judged a customer. "It's just a feeling I got, sheriff."

In the background Tom sputtered but Walt spoke right over his indignant noises. "In my profession it's called '_instinct'_ and it's saved me some close shaves in the past. You should always trust those, kid. You have them for a reason."

More confident Amanda squared her shoulders and continued her story. "They started arguing a lot, I'm usually stuck behind the desk so I didn't see much, but the way Mitch would grab his friend, and how the other guy would shake him off only to follow him to his room anyhow? I could tell their relationship, or whatever, was on its way to being over."

"One day, the last time I saw Mitch's Native American friend he had a red mark on the left side of his face. He never came back and shortly after Mitch checked out. I was relieved - that he'd left Mitch I mean," she admitted. "It didn't seem like a good situation."

Tom scoffed, clearly intending to bully the girl as he looked down at her, his face set in a stamp of unpleasantness. "A red mark on his face? And how exactly could you tell that missy? Hell, he's an Indian, they're all…"

Tom stopped, gulping back whatever he'd planned to say when he remembered he was fanning racist talk in the presence of the the local sheriff. "I mean…I mean..."

"No. I know what you meant," Walt said in a low and lazy drawl that turned Tom's pale face even paler.

"My best friend is an Indian, you didn't know that did you?" Walt asked, but he didn't wait for the manager to cook up a half-assed backtrack.

Walt turned back to Amanda, smiling a little. "We've been friends since we were boys. Being typical, occasionally hot headed kids, we got into a few scuffles. So I know from personal experience it's more than possible to tell when Henry's caught one in the face."

"So, you saw tension between Mitch and his friend? Anything else set you off, or seem odd about him?" Walt asked.

"I didn't like his friend, tall, rangy, always looked like he was mad as wet hen. But there is something else, something I should have started with," she said digging into her purse for her cell-phone. She fiddled with it for a second before turning it around, offering it to Walt.

"When he checked out he had all these photos pinned to the wall, I thought it was weird. Like, really weird. I wanted to call the police but Mr. Dunn said he would do it. I guess he changed his mind."

_Mr. Dunn_, Tom, sighed. "There's nothing wrong with taking photos. Fact is, even stalking isn't something law enforcement can do much about, what would be the point in calling them in, wasting their time, _and _ruining our reputation as a safe stop off between trips?"

Walt counted to ten and then to twenty before he spoke. "Thank you Amanda, if you're in need of a new job or a reference let me know. This is helpful, believe me."

"You want to know why you should have called, Mr. Dunn?" he asked, drawing out the honorific like a dirty word. "Because, I'm working on a missing person case, and Holden is the prime suspect. Maybe I wouldn't have to be here, taking up your precious time if I'd known this person had a stalker."

Walt kept his grip purposefully loose, if he wasn't careful he was going to crush the small blue-cased iphone in his hands. Here was that incontrovertible proof he'd been looking for. Amanda had snapped a picture of Holden closet wall, photo after photo of Henry, at the bar, walking outside, he'd even caught Walt leaving the bar with his Stetson tipped low blacking out his face in one shot.

He squinted at the photo, clumsily enlarging it. There were a handful of scenic snapshots, picnic benches, and one with Holden standing in front of a battered old RV. "_Oh, oh fuck. Could it be that easy?" _he wondered. Hope, hot and frantic building in his chest Walt looked at Amanda, sweet, clever Amanda and smiled wildly.

"I need you to send this to my deputies," he said rattling off their numbers still staring down at the evidence in his hand. Amanda had pulled a small writers pencil from her purse and taken them down before holding out her hand for her iphone.

"Right, sorry," Walt said handing it back. She pecked at the numbers before smiling, bright and wide. "There, all done, sheriff."

"I hope you find your guy," she called after him, her eyes dilated with second hand excitement. That was the second time he'd heard it today, only difference was she _did _mean Henry. Maybe in a few years she'd become a deputy, she was smart and she noticed things. The rest would come with experience. Walt half turned, tipping his Stetson to the kid and burst out of the _Motel 6_ lobby riding a whirlwind born of hope renewed.

_Deserted Highway 12:00 PM, Wyoming_

_Week One_

His head hurt like a son of a bitch. That was the first thing that Henry thought when consciousness returned, his temples throbbing in tune with the war drums in his head. He struggled to get his bearing and right himself, he felt like he was going to be sick. Tacky wetness trickled down to his ear, bleeding from the blow to the head he'd suffered. He had little doubt that he had a concussion. This was when he felt the rope digging into his wrists tight enough that the bones ground together uncomfortably when he tested the strength of his bonds. Waking with his vision blurred from a head wound and his hands bound? This was not good. Not good at all. On a scale of 1 to 10 this was fucking bad. He could feel the deep bass of a powerful truck engine and hear the sound of tires burning up a highway but his vision was frustratingly blurred.

A man's voice broke the silence, oddly lighthearted given the situation but entirely foreign to Henry. "I wasn't sure if you were going to make it for a few minutes there. Thought I might have clobbered you too hard. Sorry about that."

Henry closed his eyes and remembered, the last few hours playing out in a reel. A man grabbing him in a chokehold outside the _Red Pony_, forcing him to write and leave a note with the cold barrel of a .45 ACP pressed to the back of his head. He'd gotten blood stains on the first yellow sticky-note. After that a sudden, blinding pain and his world had gone black.

Fuck, he _did_ know who this was. It was the man he had thrown out of the bar for hassling Amy White-Feather. He was mildly racist at the very least and had a reason to be angry with him. But that did not explain what was going on here. Did it?

Henry's eyes quickly flicked to the door but the lock was down, even if he somehow grabbed the door handle he could not open it. His hands were tied behind his back, the thick grey straps of a seatbelt across his chest keeping him upright as blood sluggishly dripped from his head wound. The truck slowed, bumping over gravel and dirt as it pulled over to the side of the road. This was not good. He waited, shaking his head in an effort to clear his vision as the stranger walked around the hood pulling open the cab door and leaning across him to unsnap the seatbelt.

He was a well built man, strong forearms, and he smelled clean like he was wearing freshly laundered clothes. Taking a proprietary grip on Henry's upper arm, the stranger hauled him out of the cab propelling him forward.

Henry, confused and shaken by the strangeness of the situation lashed out, wrenching his arm from the strangers grasp he lunged for the roadway.

"Goddamnit!" The stranger cursed loudly. Gravel crunched underfoot as he closed the distance between them, tackling Henry face-down in the dirt and kept him in place with a knee at the small of his back.

"Why did you have to go and do that?" the stranger demanded, panting from having to exert himself. The stranger readjusted his weight grumbling wordlessly as though this was all somehow Henry's fault.

As if escape wasn't a natural human reaction to being tied up and carted to an unknown location for an unknown reason.

"This isn't how I wanted this to go, but...you don't say no to him, you know?" the stranger said. Henry knew he was in trouble, that is what he knew. It was not natural to speak like this with a man you did not know. Not without involving a lot of alcohol. "I had a different plan, something else in mind but he said he'd tell the sheriff I was sick and needed locking up for being like I am if I didn't go along."

Henry remained silent. If he opened his mouth he would be eating dirt. Also, he did not want to set off the 140 pound man pressing a Henry-shaped hole into the ground. The man sat back on his haunches, resting on the balls of his feet and the weight at Henry's back lifted, this allowed him to turn over so he could look at the stranger who stood motionless backlit by the headlights which were so bright as to obscure vision.

He could actually see now, which was good. Henry swallowed, choosing his words carefully. "I do not know this person you speak of, but I am certain if I spoke to Sheriff Longmire on your behalf it would not matter what this other man claims. Take this rope off, and we can still do that."

The stranger looked down at him, a black mass haloed in the dark. "No, too late. Kidnapping is a federal crime in all states that means Wyoming, too. No, too late. But Trig, he has a plan."

Henry felt his muscles coil, bound hands digging into the dirt as he tried to reason with his kidnapper. "You are right - kidnapping _is_ a felony but if I say nothing, then no one has to know. This can end here."

"Liar," the stranger said his voice was dangerous for all that it was soft and quiet, "you'd never do that."

The stranger sounded almost gentle which only heightened Henry's disquiet with the entire situation, the way he was leaning into his personal spare was equally unsettling. By all accounts the stranger was what would be considered an attractive Caucasian male in his early thirties but the dilation of his pupils and look of restrained hunger in his eye made Henry's skin crawl. Shoulders blacking out the light the man hunched toward him close enough that Henry caught a whiff of cheap cologne and stale beer on his breath.

The stranger reached out, leaning in even more and Henry grit his teeth. _Fuck. _He was all out of reason and calm, every inch of him straining in a demand too act, too fight.

Seeing that hand inches from his face Henry reacted. He slammed his head into the stranger causing him to topple back on his ass. Scrambling to his knees he forced himself up to his feet but that was the beginning and the end of Henry's escape attempt.

The stranger was quick, more so than he'd expected and grabbed him from behind, forearm pressed against Henry's windpipe. "This wasn't how I planned it," he whispered in Henrys ear, dragging him to the back of the _Toyota_ and popped down the tailgate. His earlier nausea returned vengefully and his vision blackens at the edges, it makes focusing damn hard. He's distantly aware of the damp wetness of the trailgate pressing into his shirt and the warm press of a body at his back, blocking out the chill.

The stranger is speaking but Henry only hears some of the words past the stabbing pain in his head making it feel like someone jammed an ice-pick in his ear. "You're mine first."

Henry is not allowed time to react, barely able to see the truck bed in front of him or hear the stranger at his back. But he feels it, the line of hardness pressing into his lower back and a hand on his skin, rucking up his shirt. He tries to buck the stranger off, break his hold but discovers he cannot. Next the button on his jeans is snapped as they are ripped down to his knees. Hands grab, squeezing his ass the stranger sucking in a lungful of air, his nose brushing Henry's ear.

"Fuck, you _are_ pretty."

Henry does not respond. The world is muddled, blurred at the edges so he thrashes in the strangers iron hold desperately trying to break loose before he loses consciousness, and with it any hope of salvaging the situation. It's useless, his shoulders protest were blunt fingers dig in bruising-deep.

"Stop that," the man says, shaking him hard. His head knocks into the tailgate and he goes limp, clutching at consciousness by a bare and frayed thread. Confused and dazed Henry thrashes thrown into a panic frenzy when he feels flesh, hot and foreign pressing against his ass.

"I can get you money, if that is what you want. Enough money to buy three hookers if you stop this right now." His words came out strained, and unnaturally wooden as he struggled for calm.

"I don't want hookers," the man said, his voice no longer rough with anger, "I want you." The strangers weight pins him face down over the tailgate, hands uselessly twisting in their bonds, and Henry's calm mask begins to crack.

His breath hitches, heart pounding in his chest the panicked flutter of a caged bird shot from the sky as he realizes there is only one path down which this can lead. The stranger glides his fingertips up Henry's side beneath the fabric of his shirt, over his chest and back down to his navel, featherlight brushes against sensitive skin. Touches that under different circumstances from a different pair of hands would be welcomed but now make Henry's skin crawl, wanting to slide right off his bones and somewhere far, far away.

His thoughts scatter like an autumn leaf tossed about, swept up in a strong gale. "Wait." He says, shaking his head in a mute '_no'_ as every muscle in his body tenses, struggling to break free.

The stranger pauses for a single moment before he speaks. "Can't."

That was all he said, one word, one simple refusal as he kicks Henry's ankles apart and started working the solid length of his cock inside, too dry and too quick to not be painful.

Henry cries out once, a brief burst of sound that he couldn't contain that tapers off to a keening whine. The burning stretch of a rough fuck, leaves him open mouthed and panting. He wants to crawl out of his own skin, it's too much, too fast. Henry makes a grating noise of pain and the stranger shushes him as though they were lovers and this was not rape. He bites his tongue, refusing to beg the man to stop. Blood dribbles down the corner of his mouth as his hands clenched into fists at his back; they have gone completely numb.

The stranger shifts his hands, resting one on Henry's throat, ever so gently but for the feather light press that threatens to cut off his air. Instead, he presses on the underside of Henry's chin to tilt his head to the side, then leans down and kisses him. Henry gasps, pressing his lips together firmly as the stranger tries to slip his tongue in. The stranger applies the pressure that had been threatened, thumb digging in and forcing Henry to open his mouth. He kisses him again sucks on his bottom lip tasting the bitter tang of copper before slipping his tongue inside Henry's mouth.

The stranger moans against his lips and deepens the kiss - its awkward and sloppy with Henry stuck belly down with his head canted to the side. It seems to last forever and by the time the man pulls back, the pressure at his throat relenting Henry is desperate for a breath of air.

He inhales sharply, a shuttered sigh escaping as he exhales.

"Stop this - _please_." The words cut like shards of glass in his throat. "You do not have to do this," he said, struggling to catch his breath, to stay calm.

The man sighs, breathing hotly into the shell of his ear. Henry shudders violently as lips press a chaste kiss to the nape of his neck; he has never felt more vulnerable, more helpless than he has at this moment.

"Yes, I do."

The stranger starts moving, drawing back and then shoving roughly inside him again, for all his pretense of gentleness enjoying the way Henry tries to twist out of his grip, the way his body tenses and his wrists tear at the coarse ropes, makes angry wordless refusals as he struggles with consciousness.

The slick, wet sound of fucking cuts through the near silence of the deserted highway broken by obscene groans.

The man's pace increases, becoming something deep and bruising Henry will feel for weeks, before he works himself inside and grinds tight, fingers pressing livid bruises into dark skin. Henry hears the man groan, deep and filthy, as he comes inside him.

Finally the stranger releases his grip on Henry and pulls out, without the man holding him up Henry's knees give out and he stumbles his way to the ground, caught in a tangle of jeans.

Henry hears the stranger zipping up, and part of him is wondering if this is when the man kills him with that .45 ACP he's stashed in the glove department. He is not terribly sure he would fight if he tried.

Henry just stares sightlessly into the distance feeling numb, sore, and sick inside all at once. He is too empty and hollowed out for tears. He shuts out the world and just breathes.


End file.
